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Career education is a vital pipeline to high demand jobs in the workforce. Students from all walks of life benefit from the opportunity to pursue their career education goals and find new employment opportunities. Join Dr. Jason Altmire, President and CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities (CECU), as he discusses the issues and innovations affecting postsecondary career education. Twice monthly, he and his guests discuss politics, business, and current events impacting education and public policy.
Jason Altmire [00:00:00]:
Welcome to another edition of Career Education Report. I'm Jason Altmire. We're going to talk about innovation in higher education and focus on the concept of mega universities and what that means. And we're approaching a hundred episodes of this podcast since we've been doing it. We've had a lot of good guests. I don't know. It's a high bar, but I don't know that we have had a smarter guest or at least a more highly qualified academic guest. When you learn about Bryan Penprase, who was going to talk to us about mega universities.
Jason Altmire [00:00:44]:
He is currently Vice President for Sponsored Research and External Academic Relations at Soka University of America. He has previously been a visiting scholar at places like UC Berkeley, Harvard and Stanford. He was selected as an American Council on Education Fellow at Yale. He has a PhD in astrophysics from the University of Chicago. He still is a professor of physics and astronomy. His most recent two books are called the New Global Universities Reinventing education in the 21st century. That's what we're going to talk about. But he also wrote a book called Models of Time and Space the Foundations of Astrophysical Reality from Across the Centuries, which sounds incredibly interesting to me.
Jason Altmire [00:01:34]:
But we are not going to talk about that today because maybe we'll save that for a different episode. So, you know, the point is he's an expert not only in innovations in higher education and stem, he's very well versed in global higher education. But you know, for the purposes of today, he, he's an expert on the future of universities, especially in this age of artificial intelligence. So, Bryan, I have raised the bar quite high for you, but I know you can live up to it. Welcome to the show.
Bryan Penprase [00:02:06]:
Thank you. Yeah, happy to talk with you. And, and looking forward to the conversation.
Jason Altmire [00:02:11]:
I wanted to ask first, you, you write quite often about higher ed, you know, you're a regular opinion contributor in different places. And I, I saw that you had mentioned in, in something recently that in the past two years more than 30 nonprofit four year institutions have closed. And I was just wondering, you know, before we get into the concept of innovation and it's probably tied in and mega universities, what, why is there such an increase in the number of nonprofit schools that are closing?
Bryan Penprase [00:02:48]:
Yeah, that's a good question. And it's something that, you know, obviously everyone is looking at with a deep amount of concern because some of these institutions have centuries of tradition and a really high standard of excellence. But at present the market is somewhat saturated in that there are literally thousands of institutions that are serving a declining user base, meaning the number of students in our country are declining. And I do write about how that picture is inverted around the world, especially in countries in the Global South. But at the moment, we're facing this so called demographic cliff, which is going to decrease the number of college attending students by anywhere between 5 and 10% over the next decade. And at this point, our 3,900 college and universities across the US are then struggling to compete for that declining number of students. So it's providing a market that if you look at it in economic terms, is saturated and one where the products are not particularly differentiated. And this is something I've been talking about with liberal arts colleges, is try to rethink not only their business model, but how they present themselves as products and what value proposition they offer to potential customers.
Bryan Penprase [00:04:06]:
In other words, students and parents.
Jason Altmire [00:04:08]:
Is there a recommendation beyond what you just said of how schools that are struggling in that nonprofit sector can right the ship, or is it somewhat baked in? You know what, once you get to a certain point, if you're not exercising appropriate leadership and innovation and changing with the times, that it's not going to turn out very well for you?
Bryan Penprase [00:04:31]:
Yeah, that's a really good question. And you can see, and I just wrote a piece about this, in many cases, these schools are able to reverse their decline and actually save themselves. So my most recent piece looks at the cases of Mills College, Hampshire College and Sweet Briar College, where, you know, a combination of massive amounts of support from alumni and supporters and what you might call visionary, but also very dynamic and, you know, hands on kind of leadership and the willingness to change all converge to turn around what otherwise was a decline. And what I'd like to also suggest is that the kinds of leadership and change that happened in some cases were only possible because of a dire threat, but in other cases they were actually very creative responses to reinventing and rethinking their curriculum and how they present their unique value to students. And so in some cases, the schools are in ways stronger than they were before the crisis. So one message I like to give colleges is not to wait until you have a crisis to have that reimagining of what you're doing and how you're unique and what are the key strengths that you provide to students. The default is for people either to look inward on their campus and try to have sort of zero sum discussions within the walls of the institution, or to look among their peers and everyone's trying to copy and trying to match their peers and it's really, I think what it takes is a deeper rethinking of the institution from the ground up. Why was it created? What unique mission does it have? And how can it use its strengths to fulfill that mission in new ways? So that's the reinvention that we talk about in our book.
Bryan Penprase [00:06:31]:
And we start actually with new colleges as sort of a guide to the sorts of leadership and creativity that's needed for that reinvention that a lot of our older colleges can learn from.
Jason Altmire [00:06:42]:
Kind of along those lines with reinvention and innovation and adapting to what's coming in the future. You made waves recently by focusing on the concept of mega universities, which talk about disruptive innovation in higher education. And you know, that term disruption, you know, has become a pretty standard business term. It's a catchphrase. But in, as it relates to higher education, there's been a huge surge in enrollment and programs that have flexible programs tailored to working adults. Something our audience is very interested in maximizing convenience and efficiency for the student, but also in the operations of the school and redefining what it means when you talk about quality and value in education. Can you talk a little bit more about what exactly do you mean by mega universities and where is that going in the future?
Bryan Penprase [00:07:43]:
So the mega university is a term that just describes the phenomenal growth that a handful of universities have experienced in recent years. And at the moment, I believe the statistic I came up with, just looking at the enrollments, which are truly astronomical, we're talking, you know, 180,000 plus students for some of these institutions. And if you take the top handful of these institutions, they're enrolling about 7% of the students in the nonprofit four year market. So they are growing fast. And so you have to think about why that's happening. And it's clear that they are definitely serving needs that students have, that families have effectively in a very efficient way in terms of time and cost. So their growth is a credit really to their success in matching their design to the needs of, in this case, a market. And that's a market of students who are very impatient to get past the unnecessary preliminaries of getting into their careers.
Bryan Penprase [00:08:53]:
And many of these schools have optimized the efficiency of bringing students along through generally online programs, but coupled with in person or online communities and experiential learning. So I think they're, they're really great examples of institutions that have been responsive to their market. And because many of them were designed recently, they've also been created from the ground up for today. And that gives them a little bit of an advantage over some of these older schools that have to go through more substantive change to really redo and update some of their processes and curricula for some of the realities of today. It's a very hard process to do. And the disruptive innovation model you call an incumbent institution. But in the case of these schools, they're designed for the function of providing high value and directly linking their courses and their degrees to the needs of the employment market, to employers, companies, other clients that are accepting their graduates.
Jason Altmire [00:10:00]:
You referenced a statistic there that a relatively small handful of schools now with 7% nationwide for four year schools of students. Who are some of these institutions that you're talking about?
Bryan Penprase [00:10:15]:
Yeah. So in the article I focus in on Western Governor's University, Southern New Hampshire and Arizona State, there's some others that are mentioned as well. Liberty University, Grand Canyon University, Purdue Global University, University of Maryland, global campus. But those first three are the largest and they are in many ways exemplars of this kind of design process where they've been innovating to optimize themselves for the needs of generally working adults are people who are eager to work and get straight to their careers.
Jason Altmire [00:10:52]:
And you mentioned Arizona State, Western governors in Southern New Hampshire, primarily online format. Arizona State, they've been able to maintain a traditional campus. I've been to that campus many times, and it's a thriving large campus, sort of a traditional field. But they also have grown their online capability. Is that changing the way that you view them with regard to mega universities, that they're kind of a hybrid compared to the others that are more online?
Bryan Penprase [00:11:22]:
Yeah, it's a really interesting case of a school that has indeed reinvented itself. And this is, you know, credit to their president, Michael Crow, who intentionally put forth ASU as an example of a new model for a research university and one where it's less about, as he puts it, the students that you leave out through selective admissions and more about students you include. So he was doing exactly that sort of process I was talking about in considering the institution from the ground up and realigning some of the departments, realigning the degree programs, and then bringing online a huge operation for reaching students through remote learning platforms. So it is indeed a hybrid. If you look at Southern New Hampshire University, it also has some of those features. But in the case of ASU, it's a fully competitive R1 campus and still is at the top tier of research universities. But it also has the sort of second Part to it, which is this massive online component which is growing fast. And the two components are in some ways complimentary and in some ways they are separate.
Bryan Penprase [00:12:39]:
And so it's an interesting problem to try to have both parts in the same university and make them be complimentary.
Jason Altmire [00:12:47]:
For these universities that are either primarily online or like Purdue and UCF Maryland. You also mentioned Texas A and M. I know Penn State's getting into it big as well. Are these primarily asynchronous courses that we're talking about?
Bryan Penprase [00:13:06]:
There's a mix. I'd say the majority of them are indeed asynchronous so that they're more amenable to working adult schedules so they can fit in classes when they need. But that doesn't mean that there aren't synchronous experiences within the curriculum. So they have, for example, you know, one on one tutoring from professors or from some of the mentors that are provided to students. They have online peer communities and they also often will have opportunities to meet up in either centers, which Southern New Hampshire actually provides a number of these centers across the country. And they can then have a place to work and meet up with other students and have a more in person kind of experience. But for the most part, yes, these are asynchronous and online with other types of assessments too than a traditional school. And in a lot of cases these are what we would call competency based assessments rather than sort of fixed time course.
Bryan Penprase [00:14:03]:
So not only can you take the classes when you want, but the duration of the course will vary depending on how fast students are able to master the material.
Jason Altmire [00:14:11]:
What is the student experience at a school like that? You mentioned the mentoring, but when you're talking about one of these mega universities versus a traditional school, how important is it for students to have direct interaction with their professors and cultivating that student experience?
Bryan Penprase [00:14:30]:
Yeah, no, that's a really good question. And I don't think there's one answer. And I don't think there's one. You know, when you use the word student, there's such a diversity of people that one word encompasses. So if you're a young person, maybe an 18 year old who's never lived away from your house, being on a campus, surrounded by other 18 year olds and having personal and regular interactions with your faculty is key for your development. But in many cases, either the student has a little more maturity or self reliance, doesn't have the luxury of taking four years out of their life to be on a campus, or is an older adult who may actually have served in the military or worked for a decade or more, or has raised kids and wants to re educate themselves after raising their small kids. These schools are vital for them to be able to have access. And so this is something that not only are these schools able to innovate by optimizing their educational environment, but they're also reaching different markets that really aren't part of the market for a lot of these residential four year schools.
Jason Altmire [00:15:40]:
I think one of the most interesting things I saw you write about with regard to this very point is the role that artificial intelligence can play in this process. AI, just for example, you talk about how it can predict student outcomes and then recommend interventions for the student. You know that that can help them. And that's something that's very different than what you see at a traditional university.
Bryan Penprase [00:16:05]:
It is, and it's really something, I think what you might call brick and mortar universities are also rushing to try to implement for them. It's less necessary since you have typically smaller classes with a hopefully responsive professor who can customize and adapt to students, but the possibility of having a fully adaptive learning environment that's genuinely responsive and intelligent in not only answering questions, but in understanding the student's preparation and then customizing the way that the instruction is presented to them based on that, this offers huge promise for increased efficiencies. And it's something that I think all of the schools can learn from. And I can imagine really what the future might bring is a hybrid where even the residential campuses have certain courses that are based in these kinds of adaptive learning platforms that are AI powered and they supplement that or complement it with in person seminars and projects that students can do on campus. So I think it will not only impact these large mega universities and really make them a lot more efficient and much more effective, but I think it can also ripple outwards into the more traditional universities as the technology gets more mature.
Jason Altmire [00:17:22]:
I think one of the obvious questions somebody might have in listening to this conversation when you're talking about efficiency and serving massive amounts of students is outcomes, student outcomes. And you say, I'm going to quote one of the things that I read that you had said. You said mega universities provide outcomes well below the most selective universities, but at a lower cost. So I would say, you know, since you're an advocate of mega universities, what, what do you mean by that? What kind of outcomes are you referring to?
Bryan Penprase [00:17:57]:
Well, you know, there are traditional ways. It's very hard to assess the outcomes in a lot of cases in educational experiences and really when you talk about efficiency, you talk about value. A lot of times our vocabulary just fails us because it's a very elusive, very intangible, very human process of a person being exposed to new ideas and new people and then being transformed and then being on a new trajectory in life. So when you think of outcomes, it's generally what happens to a student after they graduate, maybe three to five years down the road. And you can measure that in traditional ways, you know, like income or in terms of other kind of success metrics, if you will. But really the key thing, I think, for family and for an individual is whether your life is moving in a meaningful direction that provides you with satisfaction. And those typically aren't the kinds of outcomes that appear in university prospectuses because it's hard to assess. So in most cases, schools that are designed for career readiness, they'll cite very high employment rates, very high satisfaction by employers, and often they'll also give the simple return on investment, how much their incomes have more than paid for the education.
Bryan Penprase [00:19:18]:
In a more selective school, which is actually serving a very different student population, the outcomes take the form of advanced degrees, fellowships, awards of different kinds, and even farther down the road, more academic types of distinctions. And it's not to mean that one outcome is better than the other, because these two schools are serving different populations and putting them into different life trajectories where success is measured differently. So I guess the way I would really define success for a university, and maybe for a person for that matter, is how well the university or person is able to accomplish their unique mission. And so really, I think there are great advantages to both kinds of universities if that is the mission you're looking for.
Jason Altmire [00:20:06]:
Where are we going from here? What does the future look like? You have different types of universities serving different types of students, but AI and technologies that we can't predict that are coming in the future are going to change things even more. And there are some that are on the cutting edge right now. What's your prediction? You know, you get several years down the road. Where are we heading?
Bryan Penprase [00:20:30]:
Yeah, I've been talking about this with a lot of people. And what we usually come up with in these long conversations is the necessity for providing a line that divides activities, processes, subjects and educational types of experiences that are uniquely human and that require interpersonal interaction, and that comprises some fraction of any person's educational experience. And then there's another side of that line, which are just what are the analytical, content based knowledge, fact based materials that students have to navigate through and master in order to then have the professional facility they need to be employable. And I really do see the future as being one where we've been able to very sensibly evaluate where that line is and then optimize our educational environments to have the right mix of AI powered things for the part that is more knowledge and fact based, or analytical, if you will, and have space by the greater efficiency of outsourcing some of those things to AI for more intensive, more interpersonal kinds of experiences on all of our campuses. So I am actually an optimist. I don't see AI as a giant tsunami that's just going to sweep away everything. I see it instead as something that will boost everyone's performance up to higher levels. Students will get faster through the introductory material and then we'll be able to engage more creatively and more deeply in subject areas at a much more rapid clip than they could in the old days when they had to actually read the book, you know, word by word, and then wait a week to actually talk to someone about it.
Bryan Penprase [00:22:21]:
I think it'll really increase the way that students are able to get to more advanced levels more rapidly, and I think that'll be very exciting. But it's a time of great change and it's very frightening to a lot of people, a lot of faculty in particular, because they've trained for decades under a different system and it requires them to learn a whole lot of new things if all of this change is about to happen.
Jason Altmire [00:22:44]:
You mentioned faculty. How do you stay ahead of the curve? Because I can imagine lots of scenarios where students come up, they're more used to this type of technology, they've dealt with it. Maybe they're younger. How does the professor know more than the student? You know, as things evolve so quickly.
Bryan Penprase [00:23:03]:
Yeah, you hit the nail right on the head there. It's a real dilemma and it really sort of changes the dynamics of a classroom where the faculty member has to be very honest and have a moment of deep introspection, where they recognize the parts of their experience that are still valuable and that are sort of time independent and that comes from maybe a long life of working with students, kind of a deep wisdom and deep and broad knowledge of the way that their knowledge is contextualized into cultures and into professional communities and the ways in which they can then translate that knowledge into useful mentoring for students. But their role as a font of information is going to be reduced on a daily basis. It already was when the Internet first arrived. And so they're going to have to really adjust their patterns of how they approach the classroom and how they interact with students, and recognize that in many cases they're on an almost equal basis in terms of just access to knowledge. That's been made so much easier by AI. So that requires everyone to adopt more of a kind of collaborative approach to teaching and less of a hierarchical approach. And I think that'll again be a healthy byproduct of all of this longer term.
Jason Altmire [00:24:21]:
We have only just touched on this and there's so much more to say and I'm sure there's people out there listening that want to learn more. How would somebody find you if they had questions and learn more about your work?
Bryan Penprase [00:24:34]:
I have my website which is just called bryanpenprase.org that's one way. And then you can go to my columns on Forbes. So if you go to Forbes.com, i have a page as a contributor and that links to all my articles and there's also a link to my book page as well from there.
Jason Altmire [00:24:51]:
Our guest today has been Bryan Penprase. He's currently Vice President of Sponsored Research and External Academic Relations at Soka University of America and has written extensively about these topics. And I would definitely encourage people who are interested to check out that website. There's a lot of very interesting thought provoking things on there. Bryan, thank you so much for being with us.
Bryan Penprase [00:25:13]:
Thank you Jason. It's been really fun.
Jason Altmire [00:25:23]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Career Education Report. Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For more information, visit our website@career.org and follow us on Twitter @CECUEd. That's Cecu Ed. Thank you for listening.