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"The Year Ahead in IT, 2012 January 6, 2012 - 3:00am By Lev Gonick This series of annual Year Ahead articles on technology and education began on the eve of what we now know is one of the profound downturns in modern capitalism. When history is written, the impact of the deep economic recession of 2008-2012 will have been pivotal in the shifting balance of economic and political power around the world. Clear, too, is the reality that innovation and technology as it is applied to education is moving rapidly from its Anglo-American-centered roots to a now globally distributed dynamic generating disruptive activities that affect learners and institutions the world over. Seventy years ago, the Austrian-born Harvard lecturer and conservative political economist Joseph Schumpeter popularized the now famous description of the logic of capitalism, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. The opening of new markets, foreign or domestic … illustrate(s) the same process of industrial mutation - if I may use that biological term - that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism. Our colleges and universities, especially those in the United States, are among the most conservative institutions in the world. The rollback of public investment in, pressure for access to, and indeterminate impact of globalization on postsecondary education all contribute to significant disorientation in our thinking about the future of the university. And then there are the disruptive impacts of information technology that only exacerbate the general set of contradictions that we associate with higher education. The faculty are autonomous and constrained, powerful and vulnerable, innovative at the margins yet conservative at the core, dedicated to education while demeaning teaching devoted to liberal arts and yet powerfully vocatio

"Fixing the Broken Financing Model October 4, 2010 By Darryl G. Greer and Michael W. Klein In the title of a recent paper, David Breneman, a regarded higher education economist, asks: "Is the Business Model of Higher Education Broken?" While he objectively weighs the pros and cons of his question, we answer emphatically, yes! Put simply, the way in which America finances public colleges and universities, which serve over 70 percent of college students nationally, is severely and irreparably broken and needs to be changed. Without a new model, public higher education will fail its principal purpose of providing broad college opportunity, especially to low- and middle-income students and an emerging population of new Americans. Moreover, without a new funding rationale that has transparency and predictability for all funding partners, these colleges will lose the public trust - a critical element in sustaining the American democratic experience through education. Public colleges can achieve the dual goals of public and private benefits only by demonstrating equity and fairness regarding who goes to college; legitimacy for who pays and how; and responsibility for how colleges account for educational outcomes and sustaining the public trust. The solution as we see it should include a new public service corporation model that creates private partnerships; produces new revenue to replace lost public financing; protects and enhances the core educational enterprise; and, thereby, generates greater transparency, accountability and public trust that will support a sustained investment in public colleges. The Problem There is widespread evidence, in addition to opinion, that the longstanding model for financing public colleges that has seemed to work so well in many states for decades, now seems, even with an expected economic recovery, to need radical change. (See the soon-to-be-published "A New Model of Financing Public Colleges and Universities," in On the H

"Ready for Change.edu? January 11, 2012 - 3:00am By Paul Fain Andrew S. Rosen takes the long view when talking about higher education. As CEO of Kaplan, Inc., he often defends the role of for-profit colleges in an evolving marketplace, peppering versions of his stump speech with tales about the creation of public universities and community colleges. His point is that some skepticism about for-profits is similar to the snobbery those older sectors faced from elite private higher education. Rosen goes further in his debut book, Change.edu: Rebooting for the New Talent Economy, which attempts to paint a picture of higher education's future as well as its history. He also takes a turn as a journalist of sorts - an interesting twist for the former general counsel of the Washington Post Co. - writing about his campus visits to other institutions, a couple of which are Kaplan competitors. The book is ambitious in its scope, particularly for an author with obvious vested interests. But most reviewers have given Rosen high marks. Kirkus Reviews writes: "Incredibly, his argument never comes off as self-serving; the author's thorough exploration of 'Harvard Envy' and the rise of 'resort' campuses is both fascinating and enlightening." Rosen recently answered questions over e-mail about his book, which was released by Kaplan Publishing. Q: The book arrives amid a series of challenges for your industry. What did you hope to accomplish by writing it? A: I've spent most of my life studying or working in education, with students of all ages and preparation levels: top students from America's most elite institutions and working adults and low-income students who have few quality choices to change their lives. I've come to see how the American higher education system (as with K-12) is profoundly tilted in favor of those who already have advantages. Our society keeps investing more and more in the relatively small and unchanging number of students who have the privil

"Tue, Jan. 31, 2012, 3:01 AM Global contest will lead to help during heart attacks By Marie McCullough Inquirer Staff Writer SEPTA station manager Garry Deans saved a man´s life this month because he knew the location of an AED. MICHAEL S. WIRTZ / Staff Photographer SEPTA station manager Garry Deans saved a man's life this month because he knew the location of an AED. Do you know where the nearest defibrillator is located? Yes No View results Post a comment RELATED STORIES Join the MyHeartMap challenge PHILLY.COM's TOP FIVE PICKS Mayor Nutter outraged at suspect's bail Media misled about whereabouts of Santorum daughter Parents: Disabled daughter's transplant could happen Where's the school choice, Chaput? Contest's 1st clue: Find the pig Around the world, the hunt is on for thousands of lifesaving portable medical devices that are hanging in public places - in Philadelphia. Why would someone in, say, Abu Dhabi care about finding devices in Philadelphia? Because a University of Pennsylvania project to map the locations of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) throughout the city has mushroomed into a global "crowdsourcing" competition fueled by the Internet, Facebook, Twitter, smartphones - and the chance to win cash prizes up to $10,000. The ultimate prize, of course, will be saving the lives of cardiac-arrest victims. Penn plans to create an interactive online AED registry that will, for the first time, enable the city's 911 system, emergency responders - and any bystander with a phone - to quickly locate an AED. Beginning Tuesday, participants in Philadelphia will use a free app downloaded to their phones to transmit photos and locations of the city's estimated 5,000 AEDs. These backpack-size machines can assess a cardiac-arrest victim and, if appropriate, deliver an electric shock to restart the heart. Studies show even sixth graders can follow an AED's step-by-step audio directions. But in this age of cyber collaboration, the contest, called "

"Push for Performance November 2, 2010 The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board wants Gov. Rick Perry and the state legislature to adopt an outcomes-based funding formula for its community colleges and public universities next year. Faculty groups in the state, however, are dubious of the proposed changes and worry it could water down quality. As the completion agenda takes hold - spurred by President Obama's goal of the United States having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020 - a number of states have introduced or are considering funding formulas that reward student completion, instead of simply student enrollment. Still, those few states that have adopted performance-based appropriation only let it constitute a small percentage of their higher education funding formula, usually around 5-10 percent. If the Texas plan goes forward, it would represent one of the more dramatic changes in funding formulas to encourage completion. Last week, the Texas board released a set of recommendations for such a funding model - one for the state's universities and another for its community and technical colleges. The board argues that introducing some outcomes-based funding is one of the important ways it can help Texas reach its Closing the Gaps goal of graduating 210,000 more students annually at all degree levels by 2015. The board wants 10 percent of the baseline funding formula for university undergraduates to "be based on measures of the award of bachelor's degrees at institutions." The remaining 90 percent of undergraduate funding, in addition to all graduate and professional student funding, would continue to be allocated based on enrollments. Several factors would be used to allocate the 10 percent, including the total number of bachelor's degrees awarded, the number of bachelor's degrees awarded in "critical fields" such as STEM and nursing, the number of bachelor's degrees awarded to "at-risk students"

May 15, 2011 Crisis of Confidence Threatens Colleges By Karin Fischer The American higher-education system has long been seen as a leader in the world, but confidence in its future and its enduring value may be beginning to crack along economic lines, according to two major surveys of the American public and college presidents conducted this spring. Public anxiety over college costs is at an all-time high. And low-income college graduates or those burdened by student-loan debt are questioning the value of their degrees, or saying the cost of college has delayed other life decisions. Among college presidents, the rising price of college is not the only worry. They're concerned about growing international competition and declining student quality, with presidents from the least selective, and thus sometimes the least financially stable institutions, the most pessimistic. But perhaps the most troublesome finding from the surveys is this: More than a third of presidents think the industry they lead is heading in the wrong direction. Related Content It's More Than Just the Degree, Graduates Say Presidents Don't Agree on What Signifies Quality Most Presidents Prefer No Tenure for Majority of Faculty Commentary: College Presidents Are Too Complacent Data and Complete Results of the Surveys Without a change in course, presidents fear, American higher education's standing around the globe could erode. Although seven in 10 college chief executives rated the American system today as the best or one of the best in the world, barely half predicted that a decade from now the United States would be among the top globally. "We should be worried," said Nancy L. Zimpher, chancellor of the State University of New York system. "We are in a flat world. We are going to have to evolve." American higher education has never been a monolith, of course, but the findings of the survey of more than 1,000 presidents, conducted March 10 to April 25 by the Pew Research

Breaking Bad Habits: Navigating the Financial Crisis by Dennis Jones and Jane Wellman The "Great Recession" of 2009 has brought an unprecedented level of financial chaos to public higher education in America. Programs are being reduced, furloughs and layoffs are widespread, class sizes are increasing, sections are being cut, and students can't get into classes needed for graduation. Enrollment losses upwards of several hundred thousand are being reported-and only time will tell whether the situation is even worse. Reports of budget cuts in public institutions in the neighborhood of 15 to 20 percent (Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York, Florida, and California) are becoming common. Halfway through the 2009-2010 fiscal year, 48 states were projecting deficits for 2011 and 2012 (NASBO, 2009). Although states are reluctant to raise taxes, they evidently have less of a problem letting tuitions go up. And up they are going-California, Oregon, Washington, New York, Wisconsin, and Florida announced increases ranging from 10 to 33 percent. The normally tuition-resistant Florida legislature has authorized annual increases in undergraduate tuitions of 15 percent per year until they reach national averages for public four-year institutions. Around the country, the increases are setting off student protests reminiscent of the 1960's, variously directed at campuses, system boards, legislatures, and governors-complete with reports of violence and arrests. The New Normal Higher education has been through tough times before. The pattern of the last two decades has been a zigzag of reductions in state funds for higher education during times of recession, followed by a return to revenue growth about two years after the state coffers refill. But resources have not returned to pre-recession levels. So the overall pattern has been a modest but continuous decline in state revenues. Caption: Percent Change in Appropriations for Higher Education, 1960-2006

Kids don't put Harvard stickers on their rear windshields, parents do. But for how long? These schools have much to recommend them: impressive students, organic dining halls, presidential alumni. To maintain their reputations, however, elite colleges have long relied on limiting access-Harvard's class of 2015 is about 1,700 students, Yale's is 1,300-and that may be coming to an end. Revolutionaries outside the ivy walls are hammering their way not onto campus but straight into class. Enlarge Image CloseAlamy Elite schools have long relied on limiting access-but for how long? .It's a thrilling collegiate coup. Last fall, a couple of hundred Stanford students registered for Sebastian Thrun's class on artificial intelligence. He offered the course free online, too, through his new company Udacity, and 160,000 students signed up. For the written assignments and exams, both groups got identical questions-and 210 students got a perfect overall score. They all came from the online group. So if you bluffed your way into the Ivy League with plumped-up credentials or an essay edited by somebody else, it's time to start breaking a sweat. "I like to compare it to film," Mr. Thrun told me at a coffee shop between Stanford and Mountain View, Calif., where his day job is running Google X, the company's experimental lab. "Before film there was theater-small casting companies reaching 300 people at a time. Then celluloid was invented, and you could record something and replicate it. A good movie wouldn't reach 300 but 3,000, and soon 300,000 and soon three million. That changed the economics." It is education's time to change now. At the high-school level, interactive study sites are increasingly ingenious: Look at Piazza, Blackboard and Quizlet, founded by a 17-year-old. TED-Ed just launched a channel on You Tube, with three- to 10-minute lessons for kids. YouTube's EDU Portal has been viewed 22 billion times. Khan Academy, a favorite of Bill Gates

A new project, unveiled at the Educause conference here today, plans to provide college students a similar experience on academic Web sites. It's called Sherpa, like the guides who lead climbers up Mount Everest. The goal of the software, developed by the South Orange County Community College District, is to mine data about students to guide them to courses, information, and services.