OK, this is interesting but as best I can tell he's talking about splitting profitable from unprofitable courses. But there is another way of drawing the line between the functions of modern unis. The offer is;
+ undergraduate education
+ postgraduate education (including research degrees)
+ scientific and engineering research
+ research and scholarship in the humanities
+ nationally televised sports (subset of US only)
+ We provide accommodation
+ A social experience for late teens / early twenties
+ We set and assess exams (could split again here)
+ We provide accreditation (our courses are worthwhile as we say they are; this is complex, though, and depends on course, jurisdiction, much more)
+ We provided a branded experience ("I went to M...")
Now it is unlikely that universities that offer much of this will ever split out the functions (Vince Cable suggested it in the UK and didn't get very far). What do you reckon on the chances of some nimble new entrants taking away some of this business from the incumbents?
Well in the UK we had a huge number of recent new entrants to the market (polytechnics, fe colleges etc), whole sets of mergers. And the number of customers increased a lot, probably past the point where the returns are positive. London has recently seen a huge new market in student accomodation. Universities are providing branded courses overseas. Only the postgrad situation is arguably stagnent in terms of innovation.
Comments
OK, this is interesting but as best I can tell he's talking about splitting profitable from unprofitable courses. But there is another way of drawing the line between the functions of modern unis. The offer is;
+ undergraduate education
+ postgraduate education (including research degrees)
+ scientific and engineering research
+ research and scholarship in the humanities
+ nationally televised sports (subset of US only)
+ We provide accommodation
+ A social experience for late teens / early twenties
+ We set and assess exams (could split again here)
+ We provide accreditation (our courses are worthwhile as we say they are; this is complex, though, and depends on course, jurisdiction, much more)
+ We provided a branded experience ("I went to M...")
Now it is unlikely that universities that offer much of this will ever split out the functions (Vince Cable suggested it in the UK and didn't get very far). What do you reckon on the chances of some nimble new entrants taking away some of this business from the incumbents?
[edited to try and get the list to work]
Well in the UK we had a huge number of recent new entrants to the market (polytechnics, fe colleges etc), whole sets of mergers. And the number of customers increased a lot, probably past the point where the returns are positive. London has recently seen a huge new market in student accomodation. Universities are providing branded courses overseas. Only the postgrad situation is arguably stagnent in terms of innovation.