The Coming Disruption of Colleges and Universities - Will Big Tech Partner with the Elite Schools?
Mates,
This article came into my email and it is, candidly, very thought provoking about how the pandemic will affect colleges and the entire college experience going forward. It deals not just with this coming fall, but also what might be a seismic change in the who/how/how many of enrollees, and whether campuses will ever be utilized to the same extent. I don't know the author nor have I ever heard of the magazine it comes from, but he makes a number of interesting points. A main theme of this article is this:
Galloway, a Silicon Valley runaway who teaches marketing at NYU Stern School of Business, believes the pandemic has greased the wheels for big tech’s entrée into higher education. The post-pandemic future, he says, will entail partnerships between the largest tech companies in the world and elite universities. MIT@Google. iStanford. HarvardxFacebook. According to Galloway, these partnerships will allow universities to expand enrollment dramatically by offering hybrid online-offline degrees, the affordability and value of which will seismically alter the landscape of higher education. Galloway, who also founded his own virtual classroom start-up, predicts hundreds, if not thousands, of brick-and-mortar universities will go out of business and those that remain will have student bodies composed primarily of the children of the one percent.
Some other points in the article include:
1. It might be a great year for you/your kids to take a 'gap' year, and deposits and enrollment is likely down 10-30%.
2. Prestigious schools will be fine in the short term and are likely going to be vastly expanded in the years to come. There will be an increasing strain on what he calls 'tier two' colleges. He referred to them as the 'walking dead'.
3. He makes this comment about the on-line experience:
You need to be more animated online. You need to force the students to turn on their cameras; you need to see their faces more; you need to hold them accountable. You have to adopt these MTV-like tricks to keep people awake and engaged. I think we’re going to get better at Zoom. There’s going to be a better variety of tools — Zoom, Slack, a combination of online and offline learning. Zoom times ten.
4. And he also comments on the important social aspect of not having what most of us experienced in one form or another as it relates to college: I personally worry about how a little shit like me will experience what I did at UCLA. I tested my limits freshman year. I drank too much and threw up too often. I joined crew and pushed myself harder physically than I ever imagined possible. I fell in love for the first time. I gained resilience when I had my heart broken. I met people from different economic backgrounds who gave me a sense of empathy. All of those things would have happened, but unfortunately they wouldn’t have happened in such a gentle and joyous and safe environment had I not been on campus.
Link to entire article here: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/scott-galloway-future-of-college.html
So 2 questions from all of this:
1. First, what do you think about his comments and predictions in general? Do you think we're headed that way in the years to come?
2. What will be the fall-out for sports, including not just sports for the big schools, but sports for the many thousands of smaller schools where so many get to continue playing, running, rowing, competing in these activities that so many of us find worthwhile?
Have a great weekend, weather is warming, lock-down will lighten up soon. Be safe,
XM
Big Tech (I work for one of them) has been involved in higher ed for quite a while. It's rarely been very obvious to most people, in that the relationships have been about IT and related services, some content delivery (e.g. digital media), etc.
What the pandemic will probably do, however, is simply accelerate a long-needed reckoning in higher ed. Tuition and the annual increases have been unsustainable. When most new hiring has nothing to do with academics or research, but rather "development," it's time for change.
I agree, the constant increase in tuition coupled with the proliferation and availability of online courses was going to make the financial model of many universities difficult to sustain even in good times. A major pandemic/depression where kids either won't go to a campus out of fear of disease or can't afford to go due to financial concerns is going to greatly speed up this change. Only schools with the strongest endowments are likely to survive, and unfortunately, per the OP's/articles point "attending" college is likely to become more and more something the 1% are able to do for their children. While I am not sure there is anything that can be done about it, I do feel sad for the millions of kids in this scenario that will not get the campus life experience.
I agree with this, but I wonder if in some ways we haven't over-indexed on the necessity of a college degree as a key to "success." For myself, my wife, and our daughter, a degree was essential.
For our son, I'm not so sure. He has always marched to his own drummer, and has learned as much or more through his own curiosity and initiative than most people learn in four years of college about the subjects of greatest interest to him. It's in the social aspects that he really struggles, and going to ASU turned into a disaster as he is clearly not mature enough to be 2,000 miles away living on his own (the phrase, "Young, dumb, and full of cum," springs to mind). Being back home for a semester has been a real blessing as he has been forced to get a job and his shit together while attending an online class. His experience has taught me that everyone's path is different, and a traditional college experience may not be the right one for all.
Interesting article. Maybe instead colleges start to realize they need to reduce pricing to attract students? The loss of socialization from not being on a campus with a bunch of people who are different than you are, who have different faiths, political beliefs, attitudes about life, favorite sports teams etc. would be a huge loss. I attended college a long time ago, perhaps it is different today, but the exposure to different people and ways of thinking was more significant than the course material, as I think back on it. Of course, I majored in literature, and I am pretty sure course material was more critical for engineers etc. It is also easier to be inspired by excellent profs when you can interact with them in person, I would think.
I could see it, but why would Google, or any other company, be exclusive to MIT or any other college? If anything, I could see UM partnering with Google and then MSU paying double (or negotiation a deal half as good) to partner with Google.
IMO, it's going to be like the athletic gear deals, but with 2-3x more tech companies involved: perhaps instead of just Nike, Adidas, UA, there will be 2-3 others getting involved.
Michigan "went Google" around 2012 when I was a student and migrated to using their platforms across the university. I'm not sure how much they've expanded the use of the suite of apps and tools that Google offers, but I'm sure any school that transitioned their email and other systems to be Google-centric will be able to adapt to this without incurring significantly increased expenses.
If classes are offered online instead of in person, they should be significantly less expensive. That's not the case now.
I think a lot of adults would finish up a degree, or go to grad school, if the online options were more affordable and offered flexible schedules.
My University is trying to figure out of they want to go online for reduced cost/limited schedule of classes or push on and do it in person.
Tuition is only a small part of most decent school's income. The wider university makes MUCH more from things associated with students actually being on campus (e.g., mean plans, housing, etc.).
Classes are actually pretty expensive to run, since tenure line faculty aren't cheap.
And of course "Higher Ed" is a very broad category, and it is hard to generalize about different types of colleges and universities. (If I remember correctly, you are at an Ivy, where I imagine salaries skew pretty high.) I work at a small liberal arts college, and we are heavily tuition-driven. And for us, I don't think tenured faculty are particularly expensive. I think that sometimes when the wider public thinks about, for example, faculty salaries, they often imagine top faculty at top institutions. And of course salaries can vary widely by discipline. I am in the Humanities, and outside a very, very small number of well-known scholars at elite institutions, the people I know (even full professors) are not excessively wealthy. Comfortable for sure, but not ultra rich.
If I am an incoming freshman, unless I am on a scholarship that I cannot afford to give up, I am going to a school where there is indeed face to face classes and relatively unlimited social interaction. College is about more than the degree if you are going to spend all that money. This is why all the bluster about closing and moving online only is just that. If indeed it happens in places like Cali, you will see mass movements of kids to other places. It is easy to say now " we are going to close over a disease that is less dangerous than the flu to students." but lets see what happens in the meantime.
i think this is really where i am to a great extent. college is/was so much more than figuring out yield curves and acceleration of atoms. its dealing with a roommate and cleaning up your mess, its meeting all those girls/guys and getting to know them, maybe falling in love, or at least falling in 'like', its pick-up hoops games at the CCRB, going to yost to see hockey games, getting $1.99 breakfast at steve's (sniff. gone now), borrowing a buddy's car to go to a concert at cobo, and for those of us that played sports, man, its 'the team, the team, the team' and all that entails.
would love to see the costs come way down. i sure hope in-person, on campus, brick and mortar colleges, large and small, continue though.
Being dropped off at college is a seminal rite of passage, and as XM and others have eloquently pointed out, it is the gateway to 'adulthood'. This shared transformative experience is what forges tribal bonds, and I don't see how an on-line experience can duplicate it. Does your relationship to your institute of higher learning become akin to choosing a vehicle or even, (gasp) what brand of beer you like, where value figures in more prominently? If we're headed in that direction, I think college sports are headed for rocky shoals. It's all about the tribe, and I don't see myself ever being attracted to an offshoot of big tech in an emotional sense.
XM - for me it was discovering pot, girls, and rugby after growing up as a country boy-nerd.
wise comments.
last line is very good humor.
The price many institutions charge for higher education has become prohibitive for significant numbers of people. I've thought for a while that an on-line platform with the better teachers in the country combined with an individualized on-line experience where you interface digitally with teaching assistants could lower costs drastically and still provide the same learning experience.
For many majors and graduate programs, learning on-line might be adequate, but not for others, particularly STEM-based subject matter where labs and research opportunities are a significant part of the learning experience.
Living at a university/college provides one with lots of growth and not having that ability will be a loss but at a cost that is becoming less achievable by the day and after CV19, the financial ramifications are going to be even more onerous. Problems require solutions and CV19 is not different.
I feel for parents and students trying to figure out what to do this year and next (this includes you xm). The author uses the case of upgrading from BU to MIT. In Michigan it might be from Western to U of M... your dream school is now a reality. But if you are ready to put the money down for Michigan, do you do it knowing this years learning experience might be less than last years or next years. If you take a gap year, next year might have a glut of apps and junior’s chances decrease and ... dang I’m back at Western but their financials are crap.
I can say this: UM has accepted a significantly larger number of waitlisted students this year, I assume in anticipation of a lower yield due to C19.
Anecdotally, I teach AP level seniors and my group is primarily planning on attending their school of choice, mostly indep of the C19 issues.
I can tell you this, if I had a senior, she'd be deferring acceptance until AT LEAST winter/spring semester and taking classes at a local CC instead.
We can't go outside to play softball with ~25 people NOW but we're expecting things to get BETTER as we open? At this rate we won't be open (enough to have sports or school in any close to normal variety) until April 2021.
I don't buy into the GooglexFacebook etc. I think name brand schools will weather this storm fine and come out just fine. Having a Harvard degree is still worth paying/investing for.
The schools that are going to get destroyed are small, private colleges heavily located in the Northeast and Midwest who can not survive without having a full campus. 25% reductions in student populations combined with even fewer on campus (these colleges need room and board costs to make money) are a recipe for these schools closing shop in the next year. It's already happened (MacMurray in Illinois, Urbana in Ohio) and I think there will be a lot more.
State schools will benefit long term as will community colleges which could flourish at least in the short term.
I work at a small private college in the Northeast. Thanks for ruining my morning.
Just kidding of course. We are in a tough spot, and I'm nervous about how we'll be able to navigate it. The good thing going for us, I think, is that we are better off than a lot of our peers. As of right now we haven't made a decision about the fall, but we are exploring various ways to have in-person classes, with a variety of modifications. We shall see.
I, too, work at a small liberal arts private college in the northeast. I do agree that having students on campus this fall is critical to the schools' survival, after all, these schools justify the $75K price tag because the in person experience - teaching and campus life- are worth it. A much tougher sell if you continue for a full semester online at the same price.
However, don't underestimate the draw that these schools have for students and their families. Even in the middle of this crisis, our first year class over yielded (even without pushing the deadline back). What category of students led to that overage? The full pay students.
Interesting. I don't have full details on our incoming class, but as of May 1 we were pretty close to the numbers from a year ago. To be fair, last year we had a slight dip, so we are in track for a slightly disappointing class. Plus who knows what melt will look like this year. But as of right now, we have not taken a devastating hit. My understanding is that some other schools are faring much worse right now. I wonder if my institution benefits from a historic weakness: we draw from a rather small footprint. That was a problem in the past, but maybe it is an advantage this year.
I'm not totally surprised that full-pay students are making up a lot of the deposits. That is another possible advantage for us--we have a fairly affluent student body, meaning that our typical pool may not be the ones who have taken a big economic hit (for now). I imagine schools that draw from first-generation, lower-income students may really struggle.
Good luck--I hope your college is on solid footing and weathers the storm!
Thank you, and you as well. You make an interesting point about having a smaller geographic footprint; the irony is we've made a conscious effort to expand the footprint out of the Northeast so that California sends the most students after NY, NJ and CT. We did so since the demographics in the Northeast are not favorable; so many schools competing over a dwindling population of high school students. Now that may hurt us. We are also about 20% international, but a large portion of those students remained on campus after we closed.
I attended a conference about eight years ago for college business officers and the question was posed, "How many of you think your colleges may be closed within 10 years?" A staggering number of hands went up. So many schools have been hanging by a thread since 2008, this is likely to do them in.
Yep--we've been trying desperately to recruit outside of New England, so more into NY, NJ, and the DC area, as well as the Midwest (especially Chicago). We have not yet had much luck with international students. Our reliance on students from New England has been a deficiency in the past, but now I'm hoping it could be our salvation. Funny how things change.
I think the demise of small schools and survival of big might be most likely. I wonder if the huge public university system has become “too big to fail”. The level of economic activity around a university in a major college town is staggering. What would happen to Ann Arbor if the U all went online? Or Tuscaloosa or Charlottesville or Gainesville or many other towns? Lots and lots of vested interest in maintaining the current system.
I do not know enough about economics, science, tech, or sociology to draw any conclusions but it seems like the demise of the university might have a ripple effect that would be devastating in many parts of the country.
I will assume you are either from Michigan or the Midwest where large state universities are excellent and the dream school of many kids growing up. In the Northeast, it is the opposite. We don't really have much in the way of state flagship universities and it is the small private colleges that are desired. Just as many kids dream of being on a small, leafy campus, with small classes and knowing everyone on campus, as, like me, there are kids that want to spend a fall Saturday in a giant football stadium.
Your assumption is, like many assumptions, absolutely correct. Thanks for sharing your perspective.
I still wonder if, taken as the collective “higher ed”, the industry has become too big to be allowed to fail. Would Ithaca, NY, be an example of a college town that would be devastated, or is the economy more diverse? Interesting.
Sure you can get a fancy pants job but college is the college experience.
I worry that this increase in distance learning will lead to an increase in our society becoming more distant and stuck in our own belief system without testing those beliefs. Interacting with young adults in Ann Arbor, away from parental guidance, really allowed me to discover myself. I know it sounds cliche, but it's the truth.
If we're going to have this kind of investment in distance learning, I'd rather see it with community college and trade schools. Not every job requires a 4-year degree, but an advanced degree or certification is a must for most well-paying jobs.
I think education can happen online. I'm not so sure that good socialization can in healthy amounts. I learned a lot in undergrad and grad school classes, but the lessons I use the most are more related to social skills.
Being in a place where you're physically forced to interact with people that are completely different from you is where so much of the value lies in the college experience.
The graduation rates at online institutions is abysmal. Last I checked, it was under 10%, which puts them on a level of being outright scams. The student loan debt for online students is actually significantly higher than the bricks and mortar students.
There will definitely be subjects that will work well online. My son's calculus class is one; his Government class is one that would be much better in person, being discussion and debate based format.
If an employer is looking for someone who will work from their kitchen table, I'm sure an online certificate is fine. But most employers want someone who has social skills and four years of online classes does not compare to being on a college campus being exposed to new and sometimes bizarre things.
Think of college like travel: You can read about Paris, see movies about it, but is it the same as actually going there?
I agree--I have taught courses online and "on the ground," and I find the online experience far inferior. Part of it is that I don't enjoy the online delivery. But I do think the online format also compromises the educational results. In general, I don't think students learn as much from my online classes.
It certainly is a challenge. Successful online classes are so much more than taking your lesson plan and delivering it in front of the computer. I think faculty have done a remarkable job in an emergency situation to deliver content through the end of the semester.
If this pandemic has shown anything, it is that people crave in-person communication and contact, and will go ape-shit without it.
Online will be a broader part of education. No choice as tuition costs are out of control, and bankruptcies coming from so many students caught in the ‘pay $150-200k for a $50k year job’. College are now forced to adopt it to some degree as an alt learning tool. As for the fall, I highly doubt you will be allowed to cram 75 students in a small classroom when C-19 lingers in the air - just from talking - for 8-14 minutes. When ‘Johnny or Susie’ catches C-19 from attending classes, who gonna hear about ?
Sorry you're wrong. It would be michigan@google. ;)
Your humor actually brings up an interesting follow up question: assuming some of this comes true, what companies would be our natural partners, and why?
Stanford is basically a tech incubator at this point isn't it?
NO...
Language arts etc. are big at the Cardinal as well...
NOPE...
The idea behind Universities (name checks out) is to get higher education from several different disciplines under one roof. This way you have an exchange of ideas, learning, and solutions. Back when I was in school at Hopkins we partnered with the Peabody Conservatory of Music for innovations with hearing aid technology, sound processing, and so forth... which never could have been done without their recording studios and the knowledge of their student body.
From my understanding, at least when I was thinking about going to UofM, there was a premise behind the mixing of disciplines within the quads as well. I think it would be a mistake to take all Universities and disciplines online.
Lastly, and MOST importantly, Universities "USED" to teach social skills, because we all know the fuckin nuclear engineers are complete assholes, and Dr's have the bedside manner of a Wolverine with a case of bad hemorrhoids and a cheese grater stuck up its ass. Unfortunately because of tech (especially in this country) social graces have been lost. For example, I'm a complete ass to you UofM pricks online, but a complete 'peach' out in public.
So no... God I hope not! Otherwise, we'll have a bunch of prissy little bitches walking the planet, who echo their own moral and personal agenda on Twitter and Faceyspace for the rest of their lives.
One thing not really talked about that's important at least for the short term and possibly longer, is there basically won't be any foreign students in universities in the fall even if things do open up. That's not just a huge problem for the numbers, but kids paying out-of-country tuition is a big part of many colleges' financial plans. About 1,000,000 foreign students at American universities in 2018. 15% of UofM students are foreign.
https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/university-of-michigan-ann-arbor/student-life/international/
Galloway is obviously a smart guy but he also wrote a book about breaking up the "Big Four" tech companies and complaining how strongly they decimated the US economy. Now he's pushing for them to take over yet another part of American life. So...I'm a bit dubious about his intentions here.
That said, he's not wrong. Education has been struggling with escalated pricing for some time and this pandemic just sped up the issues that was causing. At the same time, the majority of people in "higher education" aren't at classic 4-year colleges; they are at community college and for-profit institutions. Now, there will be people who do the math and figure they'd be more successful being online at a cheaper place, but a big benefit larger colleges innately have is that you "know" the quality of education you received. I've met some really good developers from bootcamps and the like, but it's not a given and oftentimes you realize only later that they were basically "prepped" for interviews and don't have as strong a foundation. By comparison, I know that an MIT, UM, Cal, etc. grads generally have a quality education and background, and early on that's important. So my guess is that schools will still be pushing in-person teaching where possible because that's part of their brand. And that doesn't even get into how certain disciplines rely on in-person work (e.g. labs, development spaces, etc.) that can't be replicated locally.
While the COVID-19 experience will have a number of persistent results, I think the on-campus college experience is just too ingrained in our society to fall away. It is a rite of passage as much as an educational experience. We rely on that four year experience to provide a social and professional bridge from youth to working young adulthood. There are so many aspects of preparation for life (and a safe-ish testing ground for those away from home for the first time) that cannot be replaced by technology. So I agree with those who say that the students will migrate to where the traditional college experience can be had.
This article would be much better had the author not had a personal financial agenda baked into his POV.
China is heavily involved in our Universities and Big Tech. It is fucking scary and a much larger concern than simply figuring out how to educate online.
These are good college performance. I am engaged in educational resources that help students with adaptation. Australian students support sports initiatives and write campaign articles on the subject. You can click here. Baseball and American football have helped many students finish college. Sport is a tradition and respect. Students must be able to realize their ideas.
I think that the next step is going to be online schools because many people, both students and teachers, noticed their convenience during covid. I mean, I can't be sure if at schools it was as effective as with teachers on preply for example, but from my perspective, it's even better to study from home.