Here is the excerpt from my recent blog “Building an Ecosystem of Higher Education Innovation” published in Huffington Post.
The confluence of cost and funding pressures, technology-enabled learning innovations and new paradigms of quality and teaching will continue to force higher education institutions to redefine their value.
However, higher education institutions are unwilling to embrace new definitions of value and quality “as valid, even when they can see that customers increasingly prefer the new value offerings,” notes a report from TIAA-CREF Institute.
The Presidential Innovation series hosted by the American Council on Education sums up with a tough question–“Are our current business models stale and too tradition-bound to serve us effectively in this new era for higher education?”
Innovation is taking place at a much faster rate at the fringes of the higher education system than at its core. It is getting accelerated by the energy of entrepreneurs, employers, investors and most importantly, new types of learners who are open to experiment.
The opportunity for higher education institutions and systems is to embrace these “outsiders” as an important part of the innovation ecosystem. Higher education institutions will face increasing pressure to counter the public perception that “too many degrees are a waste of money.”
This shift will require the expansion of the ecosystem of higher education innovation through partnerships with and the inclusion of new stakeholders.
Share an example of an institution or initiative at the forefront of innovation–tweet @DrEducationBlog or email info@dreducation.com
Dr. Rahul Choudaha
Related resources:
- The Innovative University
- College Disrupted: The Great Unbundling of Higher Education
- The End of College: Creating the Future of Learning and the University of Everywhere
- Designing the New American University
- College Unbound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students
- Reinventing Higher Education: The Promise of Innovation
- Stretching the Higher Education Dollar: How Innovation Can Improve Access, Equity, and Affordability (Educational Innovations)
- Study on Innovation in Higher Education, European Commission
- Making Sense of Higher Education’s Future: An Economics and Operations Perspective
- Toward an Ecosystem for Innovation – Implications for Management, Policy and Higher Education
- Innovation through Institutionalization: A Service Ecosystems Perspective
- Faculty’s Role in Higher Education Innovation
- Innovative Higher Education (Journal)
- Innovations in Higher Education? Hah!
- Innovation @ Penn GSE
- The Academy for Innovative Higher Education Leadership, Georgetown & ASU
- Innovation Insights, Pearson
- The Future of MIT Education
- Northeastern University’s Innovation Imperative series
- New Jersey Innovation Institute
- Presidential Innovation Lab, American Council on Education
- Innovation + Disruption in Higher Education, Colgate University