Kevin Carey

Ben Wildavsky

Andrew P. Kelly

"At its heart is the realization that higher education must evolve in fundamental ways if it is to respond to changing professional, economic, and technological circumstances, and if it is to prepare a vast population of students--traditional and nontraditional alike--for success in the coming decades. It examines the current higher education environment and its chronic resistance to change; the rise of for-profit universities; the potential future role of community colleges in a significantly revised higher education realm; and the emergence of online learning as a means to reshape teaching and learning and to reach new consumers of higher education."--Page 4 of cover.

The Promise of Innovation

Reinventing Higher Education

Bryan Alexander

A decent if uneven collection of essays seeking to understand changes in higher education.

Most are focused on the present, and take aim at narrow topics: the community college system, for-profits, professors, online learning. Several establish historical backgrounds.

Standout essays for me including Paul Osterman's on community colleges and Kevin Carey on the new University of Minnesota-Rochester.

Some notes:
Between 1850 and 1870 the proportion of the [American] population that enrolled in college actually declined. (53)

[C]ommunity colleges account for 43 percent of postsecondary enrollment. (129)

From 2000 to 2007, the number of tertiary students in the United States and Europe more than doubled...[and yet] global tertiary enrollments over that period grew by nearly a factor of five, from 35 million to 165 million. (161)

"Until recently, I thought that there would never again be an opportunity to be involved with an industry as socially destructive and morally bankrupt as the subprime mortgage industry... I was wrong. The For-Profit Education Industry has proven equal to the task." (164)

[B]y 2008 more than 4.6 million students were enrolled in at least one online course - a figure that amounts to 25 percent of the total higher education student head count. (202)

The typical online learner is a white female in her late thirties, married, often with children, employed, and with an annual household income of approximately $65,000. (207)


Reinventing Higher Education would be a useful book for grad students or faculty starting to look into higher education and seeking a systematic view. It's less than useful to people immersed in this research, and could use a more forward-looking, futures oriented approach.

Reinventing Higher Education The Promise of Innovation

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