The Atlantic continues to post interesting stories on higher education. Here is a piece about how three high-level execs at leading tech companies view College (preview - the title is: "I don't want my children to go to College"). Eric Schmidt of google explains that there is a problem with what to do with 18-24 year olds - a warehousing problem - that means College will be around for a long time. Another executive (Buzzfeed president Jon Steinberg) laments that programming is the only useful skill that College graduates arrive with, and suggests internships would be better than College (for his own kids).

The Atlantic also led me to a presentation by another well-known tech leader, which is quite different. Bill Gates implicitly assumes that higher education leads to economic growth - and that Colleges and Universities aren't producing enough graduates. His slides suggest that we need to enhance graduation rates and that support for higher education needs to grow. Interesting contrast between a set of high-achieving college grads and a high-achieving college dropout...

Here are my conclusions: Higher education does more than warehouse young adults. Higher education could do more to develop skills that better-prepare them to achieve after college. Higher education is necessary for economic growth and higher education will be around for a long time. Continuous reexamination of higher education is the key for higher education sustainability.

US Colleges and Universities hold a huge competitive advantage over institutions of higher education in other parts of the world. In many ways we have cornered the market on what is considered the key credential for most young people making their way in the world - a college degree. But rapidly rising costs and competition from a variety of institutions has prompted many to question the value of a college degree and development of several alternatives. A recent post at the Atlantic describes attempts from media companies to enter the fray. It's clear that they are in the business of communicating information about important topics, that they have very knowledgeable people who are good communicators to do so, and they have many well-developed, widely recognized platforms for disseminating information. I know that I use lots of material from the media in my courses - I surely don't have the resources to create what they've been able to create. Right now, it doesn't make sense for me to try. But what happens if media companies start competing or charging for that information? What is it about Universities that makes us uniquely equipped to educate young people? Just because it's always been that way doesn't mean it will always be that way. The self-introspection has prompted lots of innovation. It's a bit scary, but an exciting time to hold a position at a university...

There is no denying that getting a good (high-pay, interesting, engaging, fulfilling) job is one of the main reasons that kids attend college. This ought to be one of the criteria that's used to evaluate the value of a college education and a number of surveys exist, though some (example) use this as the only criterion, which has it's faults. There is a very interesting article today on career development at Wake Forest University (and it's director). I think it makes a lot of sense to have a forward-looking program that helps students develop skills to benefit them on-the-job. I agree too, as the article points out, that this isn't the only purpose of higher education. We have been hearing a lot about jobs and economic returns of higher education, but there is some talk too about what else higher education delivers to students. Clearly this discussion informs a discussion about MOOCs too. MOOCs are great at opening doors for people around the world (great example), but what are the intangibles that are gained from enrolling at an institution of higher education that can't be replicated online? Can those be replicated online? There is a lot of enthusiasm about using the technology that enables MOOCs (online access to lectures and other material) blended with in-class activities to drive home content by encouraging students to digest, discuss, deliberate, and disseminate that knowledge (example). It is indeed a brave new world. We are just starting to recognize the possibilities...