Disruptions in Education

The recent pandemic disrupted higher education significantly, surfacing novel needs, while at the same putting decades long trends into sharper focus. This course explores the contemporary higher education industry, focusing especially on the places where disruptions of all kinds present significant opportunities and challenges for entrepreneurs, investors, and the businesses that serve this huge global market, as well as for faculty, students, and higher education institutions and leaders, both incumbents and alternatives. Using a variety of readings and case studies to better understand recent disruptions and the unbundling occurring across the postsecondary landscape, from outside and inside the academy, both for-profit and non-profit, the course will examine technology in teaching and learning; the future of the degree and alternatives to the traditional credential; accreditation; competency based education; affordability, student debt, and education financing models; investing in the education space; workforce, skills development, and lifelong learning; and tertiary products and platforms that serve the student services market. Guests will include higher education leaders and practitioners, as well as investors, entrepreneurs, and social entrepreneurs.