(2018-07-08) Future Of College Education Students For Life Computer Advisers And Campuses Everywhere

Perspective | The future of college education: Students for life, computer advisers and campuses everywhere

In 2015, Georgia Tech formed a commission on the future of higher education, and its 48 members were asked to imagine what a public research institution might look like in 2040.

The commission’s report includes many compelling ideas, but three point to the possibility of a very different future for colleges and universities.

1.) College for life, rather than just four years

2.) A network of advisers and coaches for a career

One recommendation is that the university help students establish a “personal board of directors,” which includes an evolving network of peers and mentors, both in-person and virtual, who will help graduates throughout a lifetime of educational and professional opportunities.

3.) A distributed presence around the world

In the past couple of decades, online education has grown substantially, but for the most part, higher education is still about face-to-face interactions

Georgia Tech imagines a future in which the two worlds are blended in what it calls the “atrium” — essentially storefronts that share space with entrepreneurs and become gathering places for students and alumni. In these spaces, visiting faculty might conduct master classes, online students could gather to complete project work or alumni might work on an invention.