New Paradigms for Learning

In 2010...

• when the baby boom echo is over, and there are increasingly fewer 18 year olds coming into the system...
• when the corporate universities and the alpha players in online education (Phoenix, Strayer, Kaplan, Corinthian, and others) have had another five years to establish themselves in the culture and siphon learners away from traditional education markets...
• when the U.S. stock market (according to several demographic based market projections) may begin a steady (and perhaps steep) decline....

What then?

The large land-grant research universities will do just fine. They will continue with their campus based programs to a greater or lesser extent and will almost certainly use their resources to develop online/blended classes and programs appropriate for their constituencies.

The ivy league schools will also do just fine. With their huge endowments and solid branding, they will be successful regardless of how much or how little they use online learning.

But the hundreds of smaller, tuition-driven colleges and universities with modest to small endowments and who have long been dedicated to the traditional campus-based culture will almost certainly face unprecedented challenges--not just because of fewer 18 year olds, increased competition, and the possibility of a depressed economic environment, but also because of the "disruptive innovation" of online learning.

It is starting to happen already. Students are already turning into consumers who exist in different markets and have different needs than the students of the very recent past.

We at Performance Learning Designs believe it is crucial to understand that online technology should not be thought of as just a delivery mechanism that extends the reach of the university. That is not the paradigm of the future. Online technology has given us a new place--a place where students can come to, a place where we can not only design environments for student-centered learning, but also we can easily implement mass customization for our degrees, programs, and classes.

Yes. Online technologies allow colleges and universities to extend their geographical reach. But that is not enough. We believe that the successful institutions of the second decade of this millennium will truly understand technology as place and truly understand what these new paradigms for learning mean not only for student-centered learning, but for community, customization and competition.