College Disrupted: The Great Unbundling of Higher Education

Abstract

COLLEGE DISRUPTED: THE GREAT UNBUNDLING OF HIGHER EDUCATION CRAIG, R. 2015. NEW YORK: PALGRAVE MACMILLAN. 213 PRReviewed by Marguerite j. DennisCollege Disrupted: The Great Unbundling of Higher Education, by Ryan Craig, traces recent changes in U.S. higher education and illustrates why the current system will not disappear but rather will transition to a different system-one that will be judged, according to the author, on outcomes, the unbundling of expenses, and closer collaboration with employers. The effective and efficient use of technology and data will drive these changes.Craig is the founding managing director of University Ventures, a private equity fund focused on establishing next-generation higher education companies through partnerships with traditional colleges and universities. His focus is on higher education entrepreneurship and return on investment.The books early chapters outline the authors basic premise that the three greatest crises facing U.S. higher education are affordability, governance, and data.Affordability, Governance, DataIn the chapter on the crisis of affordability, the author makes the case (often with a dizzying number of statistics) that college costs as currently structured are unsustainable, and students are graduating with too much debt. For 30 years tuition has increased at double the rate of inflation while state funding for higher education has decreased by fifteen to 70 percent.The average discount rate at private colleges and universities is 42 percent-clearly unsustainable for many small schools with comparatively small endowments.The chapter on the crisis of governance makes the case that higher education governance is failing for two reasons: unclear objectives and the shared governance model. Mission statements are vague, complex, and dysfunctional. The author also faults the U.S. Department of Education for imposing rules and regulations that are both confusing and of questionable value. Such rules have complicated the governance of many colleges and universities.Administrative bloat is another facet of college administration that has made colleges ungovernable. From 1975 to 2005, colleges and universities increased the number of administrators by 85 percent and the number of non-instructional staffby 240 percent. The author sarcastically refers to this as the proliferation of deanie ts or staff assigned to administrators who are assigned to other administrators. Few would argue that administrative bloat is one of the many significant contributors to increased higher education costs.The author takes aim at college rankings and the focus on incoming students' statistics as well as on the need to acquire more and more real estate. Poignant examples of extravagant athletic facilities and Olympic-sized swimming pools should make all higher education administrators question the wisdom of allocating so much money to such a small part of the educational enterprise.Perhaps the most revealing statistic is the amount of money that Division i football schools spend on athletes: $90,000-seven times the average amount spent on nonathletes.Finally, the author makes a scathing indictment of how research has surpassed teaching in importance.In the chapter on the crisis of data, Craig makes the case that university presidents don't have the data they need to manage effectively; there are no clear, agreed-upon metrics by which to determine whether there is a problem or how students are progressing or what they are actually learning. The author suggests that the $1 billion spent in the United States each year on education research is insufficient, particularly when compared with the amount spent on medical research ($140 billion).MOOCs, Competency-Based Learning, Online Learning, Adaptive LearningGiven the author's background, it is no surprise that he is an advocate of the potential of Massive Open Online Courses (moocs), competency-based learning, and adaptive learning to change the field of higher education and to help lower its cost. …