Fixing Higher Education, One Brick at a

Time
Pat Coryell
A strategist and innovator, consulting in education and reference industries

Apr 1, 2016

The national conversation continues about needed changes to higher education in the US. Too
many students at our 4,000 public and private colleges and universities take too long to graduate
(6 years is now the norm to earn the bachelors degree, not 4) and accumulate too much debt, too
many drop out, and too many of those who earn a degree remain un- or under-employed.

I recently attended a meeting of higher education leaders (Paul LeBlanc/president and CEO of
Southern New Hampshire University, Jamie Merisotis/president and CEO of Lumina
Foundation, and Nitin Nohria/dean of Harvard Business School) who discussed making the
investment in college more effective and how to better prepare students as truly capable
candidates for the workforce. They described the failure of our legacy college system as
awarding degrees based on input measures how long a student has studied, how many classes
have they passed rather than on specific measures of output.

Are we measuring learning using the right metrics?

Southern New Hampshire University President LeBlanc pointed to the difference between what
students know (or knew at the time of an exam) versus what they ultimately can do with what
they know, the latter being requisite for success. Businesses and other workplaces change
rapidly, so workers must be able to nimbly understand challenges and problems in their work and
adapt to dynamic conditions, leverage rapidly changing technologies, and apply knowledge to
new situations. Most US colleges continue to measure student learning in "credit hours, the
century-old system of crediting hours of instruction and homework. But time spent learning
doesnt equal learning itself. Lumina CEO Merisotis notes, this leaves us with a "faith-based"
system of education: Students pay tuition and do coursework based on the belief they'll become
appropriately educated, earn a degree, and get a good job, like 1-2-3.
But many business leaders report an inability to fill jobs because US graduates lack sufficient
workplace skills. The skills gaps are not just technical. Dr. David Deming of Harvard discovered
that STEM majors are limited without corresponding social skills (see chart). Have US colleges
changed, developed, and innovated sufficiently? Is the education itself, with 15-week blocks of
general education instruction followed by more focused academic courses, still relevant?
Although it is hard to pinpoint, numerous studies have found that most students never work in
the field of their major. Given this, what skills and knowledge should students learn in order to
get an initial job, and is that different from what theyre getting now?
Competency-based education and the use of coaches

In competency-based degree programs (there are an estimated 600 US institutions currently

developing these), says LeBlanc, "time is the variable, while the learning is fixed." In
competency-based learning, students pass through a set of competencies in order to get the
degree, and with the resulting "stackable credentials" the graduate can show proof of mastery
that serves as a guarantee to an employer of what that graduate-potential-hire can actually
do. But what are the competencies, and how are they determined? For Southern New
Hampshire University's competency-based program, the College for America, these were
determined by consulting with large employers - those same industry leaders who regard today's
college grads as inadequately prepared for jobs.

SNHU is also piloting approaches to improve student retention. In a unique partnership with
Match Education, in the new "Match Beyond program, low-income young-adult students who
have high school but not college degrees work with coaches, who listen to, help, and motivate
the students going through the program. Not only do coaches help with academic hurdles but
they also listen to students' life problems, hoping to help with solutions before students progress
in the program is derailed. This idea - of ensuring students much more support by non-faculty
human helpers - is gaining speed across other programs as well.
These fixes addressing lower cost, variable time frames, and changing curriculum lens are
important. But will they guarantee mastery? Is mastery even the right north star? If a student can
perform well against a carefully created program of competencies, do we know that theyll be
able to compete in the business environment, work well on teams, problem-solve real problems?
Do changes in pacing and output expectations create truly student-centered higher
education? Southern New Hampshire's College for America is an important step forward in
trying new models that can offer insights, answers, and progress.

Personalized learning and frameworks that train students in ways of thinking

Much has been made of more personalized learning as the next frontier in education, and in a
scalable way this is being addressed by increased adaptive learning functionality in online
programs, increased project work, and smaller freshmen seminars. Arthur E. Levine, among
others, calls for more widespread experimentation of new models and acknowledges that non-
elite, accessible colleges like Southern New Hampshire University will pioneer these models.

More can and will be done with bridge-to-college and first-year programs that to date have
manifested mostly as common-read programs or 1-, 3-, and 15-week units of coaching students
on best study habits, getting enough sleep, handling depression, and other highly personal
aspects of college life. New programs, some team-taught by faculty and librarians (a novel
collaboration too long in the making), aim to develop students richer habits of thinking,
excitement at curating and creating knowledge, use of design thinking and new approaches like
generative design. Becker College in Worcester, Massachusetts, is adopting an agile mindset
curriculum to train students in learning agility, adaptability, and uniquely human skills to
augment growing automation in the workplace. All Becker students regardless of study major or
status (full-time, part-time, etc.) will take this new core curriculum in a 5-course framework over
their four years of college that attempts to build students learning agility, rather than a one-time
mastery of a subject area of education.

In a work world where rapid change will only intensify - with jobs morphing and disappearing,
new jobs creation and ongoing change in skills requirements, team work and dotted relationships
now the norm a continuous evolution and establishment of new models in education is
mandatory.

If you are interested in reading more, here are some good sources.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/lessons-alternative-education/2/

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/03/the-commodification-of-higher-
education/475947/

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/upshot/how-the-modern-workplace-has-become-more-
like-preschool.html?_r=1

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/05/the-upwardly-mobile-barista/389513/