Abelard to Apple The Fate of American Colleges and Universities

The vast majority of American college students attend two thousand or so private andpublic institutions that might be described as the Middle--reputable educational institutions, butnot considered equal to the elite and entrenched upper echelon of the Ivy League and otherprestigious schools. Richard DeMillo has a warning for these colleges and universities in theMiddle: If you do not change, you are heading for irrelevance and marginalization. InAbelard to Apple, DeMillo argues that these institutions, clinging precariouslyto a centuries-old model of higher education, are ignoring the social, historical, and economicforces at work in today's world. In the age of iTunes, open source software, and for-profit onlineuniversities, there are new rules for higher education. DeMillo, who has spentyears in both academia andin industry, explains how higher education arrived at its current parlousstate and offers a road map for the twenty-first century. He describes the evolving model for highereducation, from European universities based on a medieval model to American land-grant colleges toApple's iTunes U and MIT's OpenCourseWare. He offers ten rules to help colleges reinvent themselves(including "Don't romanticize your weaknesses") and argues for a focus on teachingundergraduates. DeMillo's message--for colleges and universities, students,alumni, parents, employers, and politicians--is that any college or university can change course ifit defines a compelling value proposition (one not based in "institutional envy" ofHarvard and Berkeley) and imagines an institution that delivers it.