Opportunities and threats in higher education

Guest post by Margaret C. Andrews and Dayna J. Catropa, co-instructors for the spring Harvard Extension School course Strategy and Competition in Higher Education.

A core part of strategy is responding to opportunities and threats. Many organizations operating in the higher education industry are finding themselves on high alert, bombarded with opportunities and threats from all sides.

Michael B. Horn

As we thought about which threats are most powerful, we spoke with Michael B. Horn, co-founder and executive director of education at Innosight Institute, a not-for-profit think tank devoted to applying the theories of disruptive innovation to problems in the social sector.

Horn is no stranger to strategy and education. He co-authored Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns with Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen and Curtis W. Johnson, president of the Citistates Group. The book won a slew of prestigious awards.

We asked Michael, Of all the threats to higher education, which is the most interesting to you and why?

Michael’s response: “I suspect many would look at some of the emerging disruptive innovations in higher education and think of them at first as a threat, but I think they are a big opportunity for making higher education significantly more affordable and for serving significantly more people with programs tailored to their needs.

In that sense I am quite bullish about the future. For existing institutions of higher education of course, these disruptors may constitute a significant threat, but for the sector as a whole, I think they are, on balance, good news.

I think the biggest threat is more subtle, and it comes in the form of regulations or metrics for higher education loaded with great intentions—intended to benefit students but that will actually exacerbate our current struggles or cause institutions to aim for the wrong goals for students.

One example is student-loan programs that are intended to make higher education more accessible and appear to be more affordable, but that are constructed in such a way as to instead allow the true cost of higher education to continue to soar without regard for student outcomes.

Another example is goals centered around degree attainment or certain learning outcomes as the principal measures of success that may miss the true reasons why students are attending institutions or what employers are looking for from their recruits.  Things like these lead us to optimize our system of higher education around the wrong metrics and could actually decrease access and outcomes and negatively impact the nation’s long-term economic competitiveness.”

So there’s one perspective on the future of higher education: optimism around disruptive innovation, but concern with respect to the unintended consequences of regulation and metrics.

We’d love to hear your perspective.  What do you think is the most powerful or interesting threat to higher education?

Explore topics like these, and hear Michael as a guest speaker on the topic of innovation this spring in Strategy and Competition in Higher Education. Registration is open through January 22.