Education's Big Idea in '22: Continual, Always On, and Flexible Learning

Higher education is well known for its rigid schedules and traditional curriculum. But during the pandemic, campuses embraced flexibility.

Classes were redesigned with a mix of face-to-face and online content. Textbooks were exchanged for digital materials in the cloud. The academic calendar was reimagined with fewer breaks or they welcomed only certain cohorts to campus (freshmen and juniors, for instance) during particular weeks to comply with social-distancing requirements.

To get students to return to college —or come at all—campuses will need to offer them more flexible options, much like they did during the past 20 months.

At a time when consumers can, for instance, shop by browsing store aisles in person, or select curbside pick-up, or have their stuff delivered, they want the same flexibility in their education offerings.

“We should stop thinking about college as one size-fits-all,” says Randy Bass , vice president of strategic education initiatives at Georgetown University, who directs its R&D arm known as The Red House .

At a time when consumers can, for instance, shop by browsing store aisles in person, or select curbside pick-up, or have their stuff delivered, they want the same flexibility in their education offerings.

There’s no reason colleges need to go back to their legacy, pre-pandemic structures. Indeed, with a demographic cliff coming in the middle of this decade as the number of high-school graduates falls off, providing something different is the only way all but the biggest brand names in higher education might survive.

Colleges can continue to offer opportunities to mix-and-match in-person and online courses, which gives students more chances to work or intern while going to school. The academic calendar could remain flexible, with “low-residency” options. That way students can spend a few weeks on campus taking classes and part of the semester elsewhere taking online courses while they take on a research project or student abroad.??

Bass is thinking about the college degree itself. Instead of a 2- or 4-year degree or a bachelor’s or master’s degree, he calls it a “3-to-5 flex.”

“We have a flex system now by chaos and negligence,” he told me. “Some kids go faster, some kids go slower, but it’s not with any kind of intentionality as a system.”

“We have a flex system now by chaos and negligence."

Such intentionality is the foundation of a new degree launching in the fall at the University of Minnesota-Rochester. Dubbed “Next-Gen Med,” the university has redesigned the student experience to offer a year-round, two-and-half year bachelor’s degree in health sciences in partnership with Google Cloud. Every student in the program will assigned a coach as well as mentor from the Mayo Clinic, research experiences, a paid internship at the Mayo Clinic, and a digital portfolio to track their learning.

“The goal of the program is to get graduates into the workforce sooner and drive down costs,” Lori Carrell, the chancellor of the University of Minnesota-Rochester, told me.

Historically, when colleges have tried to speed up the degree it either wasn’t popular because students wanted what was left out or they dropped out because it was too fast. The Rochester campus has tried to address those issues with the coaches and mentors, as well as intensive, hands-on experiences that students want, such as internships and research projects.

“The key to speed is how can we drive down costs but also drive up retention,” Carrell said.

Higher education is no longer a luxury in an era when people need to keep one step ahead of advancing technology and artificial intelligence. As a result, learning can no longer be “episodic” where we stop something to “go to school.” In this continual, always-on model of education, flexibility of how and when learning happens is critical to student success.

Jeffrey Selingo has written about higher education for more than two decades. He is the author of four books on higher education; the latest, Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions (2020). He is co-host of the podcast, Future U. , and editor of the higher education newsletter, Next . You can find out more about him at jeffselingo.com .