Why I Am a SuperBubble Hawk | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The John William Pope Center for Education Policy provides a treasure trove of information suggesting the better path forward in regards to North Carolina's number one issue - public education. Public education, at all levels, requires a significant amount of funding from our state government, and all one hundred North Carolina counties, so it is essential that leaders effecting education policy get it right, and know that concerned entities, like the John William Pope Center, will be minding their progress to do so. We welcome the John William Pope Center for Education Policy to our growing readership, and expect our readers to learn all they can to do their part in this wise endeavor to better educate our People.

The author of this post is Jane S. Shaw.

    A colleague at the Pope Center has sighted some interesting birds - "bubble hawks" and "bubble doves." Using language from the Vietnam War (some of us remember that), he describes as "hawks" those who think the higher education bubble is likely to burst and as "doves" those who think that not much will change.

    The "bubble," of course, refers to the possibility that, as with housing, tuition will go up and up until people decide that the product is not worth the price. At that point, the customers (students) will stop buying. Enrollment will decline and college revenues will fall, bursting the balloon and putting vulnerable schools out of business.

    That's the hawkish version. Doves, on the other hand, think that there may be no bubble and, if there is, it will slowly deflate.

    But then there are the "superbubble hawks," who believe that the disruptive technology of online education will speed up and amplify the effects of the financial bubble, bringing change, both creative and destructive.

    I'm one of those.

    And so, too, it appears, is Jeffrey Selingo, editor at large of the Chronicle of Higher Education. While moderate in tone, his book College (Un)Bound sketches the landscape we might see after financial forces meet technological change, as education "unbundles" and students start inventing or "hacking" their own education.

    In contrast, Jonathan Marks, associate professor at Ursinus College, is a bubble dove, maybe even a "superbubble dove."

    Marks doesn't think that today's college students face a debt crisis and he doesn't think that technology will radically change universities. Schools will stay a lot like they are now. They are especially needed because many of their students will be first-generation students, unprepared to pluck academic credits from here and there, build a sophisticated portfolio of badges and MOOC course credits, or otherwise invent their own education - the picture drawn by Selingo.

    Rather, says Marks, that kind of student will need the guidance from the kind of faculty advisers who teach at today's solid, brick-and-mortar schools. You can read his critique of Selingo's book here on our site.

    Neither Selingo nor I believe that the schools of today will disappear, but I for one see the potential for a wave of closings and a recombination of many educational pieces into portfolios and new credentials, along with the creation and reinvention of new schools that serve students better.

    Naturally, I may be wrong. But let me explain why I am a "superbubble hawk."

    Years ago, I was taken with Clayton Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma - the book that described disruptive technology in industry - long before Christensen began talking about dilemmas facing colleges or predicting that in ten years hundreds of colleges will go bankrupt (which he recently did).

    As I have recounted many times, a disruptive technology follows a pattern, and higher education seems to be in line with the pattern. To wit:

1. The story starts with big, well-managed institutions that are happily serving their eager customers. Their corporate culture serves a sophisticated market, using well-developed distribution channels.

    Christensen's example: It is the 1950s, and big companies like Zenith and RCA provide ever-improving radios and televisions using vacuum tubes. They sell their products through independent appliance stores (which, it happens, make most of their money repairing TVs with blown-out vacuum tubes). But the TVs keep on selling.

    Higher education example: It is the turn of the 21st century. Demand for college is rising, prices are going up, alumni are generous. The college diploma is the new American dream. Students from high schools around the country flock to universities, public and private, regardless of whether they have much interest in college education.

1. A new technology appears, but it is so primitive that the established institutions hardly notice it.

    Christensen's example: The transistor was invented in 1947 - an impressive technical achievement but too weak to use in commercial radios and televisions. A Japanese company, Sony, comes up with the idea of selling tiny pocket transistor radios to a new market - "non-consumers." These are teenagers who now, for the first time, can afford their own radio.

    Higher education example: Online education, spawned by the Internet, appears. For-profit upstarts like the University of Phoenix market it to "non-consumers" of traditional education: low-income working adults who need credentials. Wall Street loves the new companies but the education establishment ignores them. (Unlike Sony, U of P is aided enormously by federal grants and loans.)

1. While the establishment dismisses the upstart products, the technology behind them intrigues some of its members.

    Christensen's example: RCA spends hundreds of millions of dollars trying to use the transistor, but fails.

    Higher education example: Colleges toy with online classes. Columbia University starts Fathom, an e-learning project, but closes it down in 2003. The British Open University tries a U.S. startup, but shuts it down. Then, thanks to Sebastian Thrun of Stanford, MOOCs (massive open online courses) catch fire. But, again, doubt sets in. A Gates Foundation official wonders if MOOCs are just a "passing fad."

1. The disruptive products get better and better.

    Christensen's example: The market takes off with the Walkman cassette player in 1979; soon, the transistor is everywhere.

    Higher education example: By 2009 economist Richard Vedder had observed that nearly 10 percent of enrolled college students are attending for-profit colleges, where online is the chief feature. In 2013, Vance Fried predicts the advent of "adaptive" or customizing learning and Career Education Corp. tries it with 300 courses.

1. New distribution channels spring up.

    Christensen's example: Radios and TVs are now sold at discount outlet stores like Kmart, Walmart, and Costco, which have been expanding along with the products. Most of the old appliance stores have gone out of business.

    Higher education example: Sebastian Thrun quits Stanford to work for Coursera, a private creator of MOOCs. He loves teaching 160,000 students rather than just 200.

1. The end game arrives.

    Christensen's example: By 2013, companies like RCA and Zenith are but a memory.

    Higher education example: We don't know yet what it is, but we do know this:

    StraighterLine offers courses at $99 a month and $49 per course.

    Western Governors University offers a college education for $18,000 in a year and a half.

    The University of Wisconsin starts a separate online branch, and Texas and Indiana integrate Western Governors University branches into their state systems.

    Online badges and certificates proliferate.

    Influenced by Christensen, a few traditional colleges reinvent themselves by embracing online education - Rio Salada Community College, the University of Southern New Hampshire, and Brigham Young University-Idaho.

    Some traditional schools experience enrollment declines, and only 27 percent of college CFOs surveyed by Inside Higher Ed express "strong confidence in the viability of their institution's financial model" over the next five years. Saint Paul's College of Lawrenceville, Virginia, is closing, after trying to merge with St. Augustine's of North Carolina. Montreat College in North Carolina is merging with Point University in Georgia. The 85,000-student City College of San Francisco is on the brink of losing accreditation due to financial and administrative problems.

    The new games have begun.