15 Reasons Why Colleges (as We Know Them) Will Become Obsolete

1. Colleges are not catching up with emerging “hybrid job positions”

Everyday the gap grows wider between the way the kids are being taught and what they actually need to learn. According to a report by workforce analytics firm Burning Glass, more than a quarter million hybrid job positions, which call for skill sets that aren’t customarily taught as a package, opened up between April 2014 and March 2015. Colleges do not typically offer programs for students who want to become experience designers, social media producers, content managers, forensic technologists, digital storytellers or marketing automation managers.

2. Current academic structure does not meet industry expectations

Fourth Industrial Revolution is here and it has very specific demands. It looks like current academic system fails to meet them.

Industry gave an F to academia.

3. One size doesn’t fit all any more.

Colleges typically offer programs with limited customizability: a few elective courses, academic minors, ability to take the course from a different professor (if you are lucky) and so on. As academic structure handles everything with a linear mindset (i.e. departments are designed as linear sets of curricula, curricula are designed as linear sets of courses, courses are designed as linear sets of topics etc.), most colleges don’t let their students build their own programs, curricula and schedules for their specific interests, availabilities and preferences. Differentiated instruction is hardly ever utilized for some reason, and this will (have to) change.

4. Current academic structures do not offer mastery learning

As mastery learning brilliantly suggests, students must comprehend a subject fully before moving to the next one, and we are not enforcing it in today’s colleges unfortunately; a C is a passing grade. Thanks to the technological developments in recent decades, it is now possible to utilize mastery learning very easily, where students cannot move forward unless they entirely understand the current topic, and teachers act as more like guides rather than lecturers.

5. Companies already took on education

Well, somebody needs to prepare the workforce for the real world.

Nature abhors a vacuum (or a gap between academia and the real world).

6. Vocational training and non-degree education is booming

The traditional four-year degree is dying, as economy requires more and more “technicians and associate professionals”, who can keep studying on the side as their careers advance.

You don’t need to study for four years to get a good job any more.

7. Students are already working professionally and their time is limited.

Most students already have actual jobs.

Students need to plan their education around their work schedule.

8. “Nontraditional student” is the new “traditional student”.

And the colleges are not ready for it.

“Nontraditional student” is the new “traditional student”.

9. Colleges are not affordable

Telling students to spend the money they don’t have is not a sustainable system.

Nope.

10. Colleges are becoming even more unaffordable

Increasing tuitions despite the giant student debt is not smart.

Doesn’t look like a sustainable system to me.

11. On-campus enrollments are going down

People want to learn online.

Population is going up, enrollments are going down. Hmm…

12. Online education is on the rise

Online anything is on the rise.

People want to do everything online now and education is not an exception.

13. Online education is more affordable

By the same token, more than 250 million people use Amazon.

Why pay more?

14. A mishmash of research and teaching is not the best approach for educational institutions

If we want to consider colleges as gateways to employment, research and teaching must be separated, so that we wouldn’t waste time, energy and money forcing future teachers to undertake research and dictating future researchers to teach. We need well-trained teachers and researchers who are fully equipped for their occupations, not shape-shifting Dr. Jekylls and Mr. Hydes.

15. Quizzes, midterms and finals don’t promote long-term learning

We all forget things, especially when we set an expiration date on the knowledge acquired. The reason why you forget the phone number you wrote down on a piece of paper almost immediately and the reason you forget most of the things you studied right after you pass the test could be very similar; you condition yourself to forget what you learned after the shelf-life is over. We need to utilize better evaluation methods.

PS: Some of the fact screenshots are taken from academicpartnerships.com.

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Originally published at higheredrevolution.com on August 12, 2016.