“The Great Unbundling of Higher Education Starts Now,” by Ryan Craig, in The Gap Letter

“Bundling works when consumers value different parts of the bundle differently: in cable TV, one viewer can’t live without ESPN, another is obsessed with SharkFest on National Geographic (five weeks > one measly Shark Week on Discovery). In higher education, one student prioritizes playing in the symphony, another being an athletic supporter. But bundling is nonsensical when there’s only one part of the bundle: online classes. […]

“Once a vaccine allows a return to campus in the fall of 2021, presidents, provosts, and trustees will try to put Humpty together again. At all but the most selective institutions, they will fail. Covid will reveal the man behind the curtain; the magic of the bundle will be gone, and price elasticity among students and parents will increase dramatically. Magic is nice, if you can afford it. And in a Covid economy, fewer families will be able to. And so next fall will mark the official fall of the higher education bundle. 

”If they wish to avoid desperate, deep, and debilitating discounting, non-selective colleges and universities have two choices. The first is to lower the price of the bundle. But that’s only possible for the privileged few, or for Paul Quinn College’s Michael Sorrell (like Alexander Hamilton, a host unto himself). The second is to anticipate and embrace unbundling.”

Why does this matter to the future of learning?

Like higher ed, K12 (especially independent school education) has bundled so many options for one price.

If you have a powerful brand, that’s great. If you don’t, consider how long families will pay for that bundle.

If they will be increasingy less willing to pay for the full bundle, what might it look like for you to unbundle And what might be the second and third order consequences?

…speaking of second and third order consequences…

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“Google to launch 3 more tech certificates on Coursera,” by Natalie Schwartz, in EducationDive

“Google bills the new certificates, which will be available by the end of the year, as a way to help people without college diplomas find jobs. It will consider the completion of one of the programs as equivalent to a four-year degree for relevant roles at the company.”

Why does this matter to the future of learning?

If you and other schools unbundle, who will step in to fill the gaps? Consider what Google has in mind with their certificate program:

• Each certificate will cost $49 a month and take three to six months to complete. “Google will fund 100,000 need-based scholarships for those who take them.”

• The program in IT support takes less than six months and may count for 12 college credits. “Students who complete it can also share their information with a consortium of more than 50 employers, including Hulu, Infosys and PNC Bank.

• “Google will create a similar hiring consortium for students who complete one of the new certificates. It will also be offering apprenticeships to some program graduates and launching the IT support certificate in career and technical high schools, starting with six this fall.

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LinkedIn post by Jeff Selingo

“One question I get all the time is how many colleges might go out of business because of the pandemic. There are more than 500 institutions at risk right now because they enroll fewer than 1,500 students (40% of the U.S. market is made up of colleges with <1,000 students), they discount their tuition by more than 50% leaving them with less net revenue, and have high debt.

What are other risk factors I'd be looking at?

• What is their technology backbone -- do they have capacity to provide quality remote education at scale in the coming year?

• What is their mix of ‘products’ -- in other words do they offer only bachelor's degrees, face-to-face instruction? Colleges need a varied product and revenue mix to survive this.

• How dependent they on tuition and revenue like room and board? The latter is at risk if there's another semester or year online.

• What are the risk factors you think prospective students and parents should be looking at? What about boards of trustees?

Why does this matter to the future of learning?

Have you done your health check?

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