http://www.universityventuresfund.com/ University Ventures is the premier investment firm focused exclusively on the global higher education sector. UV pursues a differentiated strategy of 'innovation from within'. By partnering with top-tier universities and colleges, and then strategically directing private capital to develop programs of exceptional quality that address major economic and social needs, UV expects to set new standards for student outcomes and advance the development of the next generation of colleges and universities on a global scale. http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=a-tale-of-two-cities If you thought the only way in which the French Revolution was like the present period in the higher education private sector was the Department of Education’s “let them eat cake” attitude to the for-profit sans culottes, think again. Because it does seem to be simultaneously the best and worst of... http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=bad-judgment-magazine There was a popular saying at one of my prior companies. Whenever someone came up with an idea that was less than grand we’d say that person was a candidate to appear on the cover of Bad Judgment Magazine. The company was the leading organization of summer camps and boarding schools for treating childhood obesity. At one of the camps... http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=from-iphone-to-icollege My first lesson about the importance of simplicity in higher education occurred in the early 1990s when Yale made a major investment in its telecommunications infrastructure. The grey-box security phones placed around campus at gates and outside residential colleges and classroom buildings were upgraded. The new phones were superior in several respects. First, they were Yale blue. Second, they featured a big red alarm button. Third, instead of a receiver, they had a speaker that operated at high volume. The complete package looked like a police car and screamed... http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=fifty-shades-of-distribution Over the years, I’ve had some really bad ideas for things I might write. Lowlights include: The great American postal novel. The rags-to-riches story of a mailman who becomes a junk mail baron. A tale of a party planning firm that strikes it big with “Star Alliance Lounge” themed weddings and bar mitzvahs. Guests love the dim lighting, the opportunity to watch CNN at low volume, and the ability to bring their... http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=arizona-breakfast-club This week marked the fourth annual Education Innovation Summit in Phoenix, Arizona. Originally a small conference that attracted a room full of friends who had been toiling for years to make the education private sector something more than an oxymoron, this year’s Summit expanded to three days and moved on up from Arizona State University to the Phoenician resort. Still it sold out weeks ago, unable to accommodate the more than 1,400 people who wanted to attend... http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=jackpot I had the pleasure of attending law school in New Haven right after legalized gambling was introduced to Puritan New England in the form of the giant Foxwoods Casino in nearby Ledyard, CT. During my first year of law school, I attended the opening of the rival Mohegan Sun and remember thinking how fortunate to attend a law school that grades on a pass/fail basis... http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=hey-moocs-get-smarter MOOC providers must have been singing along last week as the Democratic leader in the California State Senate introduced a measure that would require state-supported institutions to award credit for faculty-approved online courses taken by students unable to register... http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=where-stupidity-is-a-handicap It was Napoleon who famously said “in politics, stupidity is not a handicap.” This adage encapsulates much of what happens in Washington, DC, where a panoply of apolitical issues are bogged down in political gridlock. It’s a natural result and desired goal... http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=value-so-low-it-should-be-against-the-law In last week’s State of the Union address, President Obama said he would ask Congress to change the Higher Education Act “so that affordability and value are included in determining which colleges receive certain types of federal aid.” It seemed fairly incremental progress from his 2012 speech where the President said he would aim to tie federal aid to value for some minor programs. But in the supplemental document that followed, the Administration revealed that... http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=the-price-isnt-right “How should families think about college affordability?... At many colleges, almost no one pays the sticker price.” - Chronicle of Higher Education It has been over a year since the Occupy Wall Street movement flowed onto college campuses. Occupy Colleges focused our attention on the college affordability crisis and its corollary, the student loan debt crisis. In this time, the sense of crisis has only deepened. 11.4% of all student loans are more than 90 days past due. Average loan balance per borrower is now nearly $24,000. 26 million consumers have two or more open student loans on their credit report. Total student loan debt has surpassed... http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=hype-vs-hope Never has so much been made by so many about so few. Last week’s announcement by Udacity and the California State University system that they would jointly develop remedial and introductory MOOCs, starting initially at San Jose State University, and offer them for credit to an initial cohort of 300 students for $150 each, is the higher education story of this young year. Udacity founder Sebastian Thrun said he hoped the $150 price point would change higher education, while California Governor Jerry Brown... http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=harvard-yale-and-the-future-of-for-profit-universities What makes American higher education exceptional? Most Americans would argue quality, which it turns out boils down to a discrete mix of readily quantifiable educational inputs like spending per student, and outputs relating to research, but not student outcomes. Beyond the top... http://www.universityventuresfund.com/UV-Newsletter-Holiday-Edition-Whitepaper.pdf Since establishing University Ventures nearly two years ago, we have written and spoken on many aspects of higher education and online education in particular. With nearly 15% of U.S. students enrolled in higher education studying entirely online and earning degrees without ever setting foot on campus, and with online education in the headlines and popular consciousness like never before, this holiday season we thought it would be a nice gift (to ourselves, primarily) to organize our views on the evolution of online education and its impact on higher education more broadly in a handy whitepaper format. Have a very happy (and offline) holiday season. http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=chinas-elite-universities-blackpool-before-easyjet One of the great virtues of a liberal arts education is its demonstrated ability to prepare students for a multitude of different employment paths - not only later in life, but immediately upon graduation. My post-graduation decision matrix was particularly eclectic: Management consultant; English teacher in China; Florida-based supermarket tabloid. http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=the-university-is-not-flat In his 2005 book The World is Flat, New York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Thomas Friedman illuminated the new digital face of globalization, its results and discontents. Friedman's "flat- world platform" permits individuals and small groups to compete globally, which results in massive increases in productivity and corresponding dislocations. Recent headlines in higher education seem to suggest that a flattening world is also flattening the university... http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=death-of-the-degree-not-fo-fast 'Death of the Degree? Not So Fast' at Inside Higher Education http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=jobs-capabilities-and-the-new-digital-divide If the presidential election was about one thing, it was jobs. A few numbers stand out from the campaign: 23 million unemployed, an unemployment rate that has remained over 7% since the last election, and finally 3.7 million unfilled jobs. America remains exceptional in many ways, but unfilled jobs is not one of them. Other countries fare as poorly or worse in identifying and preparing workers to meet the needs of employers. http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=debating-the-dystopian-counterfactual Only a few topics in the Presidential debates produced complete agreement between President Obama and Governor Romney. The middle class? (Check. Both candidates seem to be in favor of the middle class.) The importance of families? (We’re still waiting for the first anti-family Presidential candidate. Would be interesting.) And higher education. Both candidates view higher education as the key to prosperity for individuals, and to economic competitiveness for America. http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=synchronicity After a year’s excitement over the transformative potential of massive open online courses (MOOCs), it shouldn’t be surprising that critics are emerging. Academics are enrolling in MOOCs and writing about their experiences: some positive, but mostly negative. Many of these MOOC criticisms have a proud lineage within the academy: appraisals of online learning over the past decade. Dean Kirschner enrolled in the Penn/Coursera MOOC “Health Policy and the Affordable Care Act” and found the overall experience intriguing and rewarding. Nonetheless “too many postings were at the dismal level of most anonymous Internet comments: nasty, brutish, and long”; “The reliance on old-fashioned threaded message groups made it impossible to distinguish online jerks from potential geniuses”; “There was no way to build a discussion, no equivalent to the hush that comes over the classroom when the smart kid raises his or her hand.” http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=re-searching-for-online-learning-2-0 Conventional wisdom says – and most analysts agree – that online higher education will continue to grow like a weed, with annual growth exceeding 20%. But how to square conventional wisdom with increasing signs that the online market is plateauing? A new report from Eduventures based on a survey of 1,500 U.S. adults found virtually no increase from 2006 to 2012 in the number of adults planning to enroll in online programs. Eduventures surmises two reasons for this: (1) the medium isn’t materially more appealing today than it was 6 years ago; and (2) prospective students find it expensive. According to Eduventures, most adult learners for whom convenience was the major draw have already enrolled in online programs. A report from Parthenon released last March confirms this: cumulative starts over the prior 5-year period were nearly 50% of the most addressable market (defined as adults under age 35 with some college but no degree). http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=online-learning-this-buds-for-you Summary: Beer industry market segmentation is employed as an analogy for the online learning market. These segments provide different answers to the question of when and under what circumstances online learning will become the default medium for traditional age students. http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=elitism-inequality-and-MOOCs "The United States has, overall, the most effective system of higher education the world has ever known." -- Clark Kerr. From a global perspective, the most distinctive characteristic of American higher education is its heterogeneity. While higher education in almost every other country is public and fairly homogeneous across institutions, private institutions are much more widely represented in the U.S., and among public colleges and universities, a high degree of heterogeneity has been tolerated. Clark Kerr’s master plan for the University of California is the archetype for American public higher education, with the UC schools charged with enrolling the top eighth of high school graduates, the CSU system enrolling the remainder of the top third, and community colleges providing access to everyone else. As Arthur Levine remarked in his preface to 'Higher Learning in America, 1980-2000': "The importance of the California Master Plan was that it stopped the stampede toward a single, homogeneous model of higher education. Excellence, in many purposes was chosen over mediocrity... ." http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=the-great-unbundling Over the past decade, sales of recorded music are down 50% and continue to fall each year. The reason isn’t online piracy. It’s that digital technology has forced a revolution in a business model that had relied on bundling the music consumers wanted (singles) with music they didn’t (the rest of the album – at least for most albums). In an industry unbundled by technology, consumers can purchase only the content that they want and bundled product is no longer viable. http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=waystation-on-the-road-to-badges-double-click-degrees "By 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world... So tonight I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training... every American will need to get more than a high school diploma." ~ President Barack Obama, Address to Joint Session of Congress, February 24, 2009. President Obama entered office with a very clear priority for higher education: regaining America’s rightful place as the world’s most educated nation. Doing so would have required educating an additional 10 million students beyond the current pace and effectively increasing higher education attainment for adults 25+ from 40% to around 55%. http://www.universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=go-with-the-flow Is online education effective? Over the past decade virtually every study on the question has demonstrated that it is as effective as traditional classroom delivery. But as none of these studies randomly assign students to classroom or online delivery, what they actually mean is that students who are inclined to select an online program perform as well or better than students who are not so inclined. This self-selection bias should be a primary concern for anyone interested in the future of online education.