On the surface, universities are a nice idea. You go in, pick a subject you like, learn from the experts, and leave being job- and future-ready. This is why so many people (around 40% in rich countries) decide to go to college, even if it means making big financial and personal sacrifices. Yet just because so many people are doing it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a good thing to do. In fact, while there is generally a cost – in terms of employment prospect – of not having a college degree, there are not always clear competitive advantages in having one, particularly if almost half of the population has one. The reality in today’s digital-first world is that we need to teach every generation how to learn, unlearn, and relearn — quickly — so they can transform the future of work, rather than be transformed by it.
6 Reasons Why Higher Education Needs to Be Disrupted
While there’s currently no clear path to disrupting higher education, there are many pain points that those in the education field and beyond should be confronting. First, there is still a significant mismatch between the jobs people want and those that are actually available. What’s more, a substantial proportion of future jobs will be hard to predict, except for the fact that they will require a very different range of skills than those displayed by most graduates. Students are paying more and more to get less and less, with student debt reaching all-time highs. Many elite universities are prioritizing research at the expense of teaching. And many universities are reinforcing inequality as they accept students from higher socio-economic backgrounds at a higher rate. Much about the current model of higher education needs to change. The reality in today’s digital-first world is that we need to teach every generation how to learn, unlearn, and relearn — quickly — so they can transform the future of work, rather than be transformed by it.