Is formal classroom education a fatality of the pandemic?

As we sit and tally the expanding days of remote working, schooling, and learning more scholars are posing difficult questions. Admittedly the academy needs an overhaul, an intellectual disruption of the mind and soul. Scott Galloway's prediction is that education will pivot to a body less physical being and become all minds.

... hundreds, if not thousands, of brick-and-mortar universities will go out of business and those that remain will have student bodies composed primarily of the children of the one percent.

What will herald the transformation: 

While one can envision a virtual world of learners, without the body of physical brick-and-mortar, what will happen to the spirit of social interaction and physical engagement?

What innovation transforms powerless into powerful?

Industry has long cited the misalignment of education to the rapid change and needs of skilled labor that the academy produces for the global workforce. Until now, voluntary public-private partnerships try to bridge the widening gap of labor force skills, intellect, and acumen needed for the future of work. Is Galloway's prediction of the future plausible?

. . . partnerships between the largest tech companies in the world and elite universities. . . . these partnerships will allow universities to expand enrollment dramatically by offering hybrid online-offline degrees, the affordability and value of which will seismically alter the landscape of higher education.

The prediction is more than plausible - the pandemic is an accelerator to what was happening gradually. Global unemployment is high, but not distributed the same among industry sectors. Employment will be in different spaces in the future. The education sector will need to offer a more creative, agile labor force that is trained to learn new skills as the world changes - no small challenge.  Galloway cites "the walking dead" as those colleges and universities who understand they are under performing and the value proposition does not align with student or industry expectations. Partnerships will not be voluntary, they will differentiate the survivors from the dead and buried.

Who will be the Voice of the poor?

In Galloway's scenario, the poor will be educated, but not in classrooms; brick-and-mortar education facilities will be limited and restricted for those who can afford them.

The cruel truth of what pretends to be a meritocracy but is a caste system is that your degree largely indicates or signals your lifetime earnings.

For the poor, the campus college experience will be beyond their reach, as will the top-tier networking social engagement experiences from being "on the yard." There will be opportunity for government support, but the disparity in wealth and wealth systems has much of the resources in the private sector. How will the private sector respond to the needs of educating massive numbers in the labor force who will not have the capital for their own human resource development? Who can predict the social unrest from the reversal of fortune of a shrinking middle class? The poor with its limited resources may have no voice at all... but what will they do? Time will tell.

The Coming Disruption to College

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