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Higher education's purpose is to equip students for success in life -- in the workplace, in communities, and their personal lives. While this purpose may have remained constant for centuries, the world around colleges and universities is undergoing significant change. Higher education is under pressure to meet greater expectations, whether for student numbers, educational preparation, workforce needs, or economic development. Meanwhile, the resources available are likely to decline. New models, an intense focus on the student experience, and a drive for innovation and entrepreneurism will ensure that higher education continues to meet society's needs. Information technology supports virtually every aspect of higher education, including finances, learning, research, security, and sustainability, and IT professionals need to understand the range of problems their institutions face so they apply IT where it brings greatest value. Creating this future will require collaboration across organizational and national boundaries, bringing together the collective intelligence of people from backgrounds including education, corporations, and government.
Articles and Reports
- The Current and Future State of Higher Education, EDUCAUSE Live!, November 2012.
- Through a Glass, Brightly: IT’s Impact on Higher Education by 2020, ECAR Bulletin, August 2012.
- Information Technology and Tomorrow’s University: A President’s Confessions and Advice. Jolene Koester. EDUCAUSE Review, January/February 2011.
- Open Governance in Higher Education: Extending the Past to the Future. Patrick Masson. EDUCAUSE Review, January/February 2011.
- Much of the EDUCAUSE Review Magazine, Volume 45, Number 2, March/April 2010 issue is devoted to the future of higher education.
- The entire issue of the EDUCAUSE Quarterly Magazine,Volume 33, Number 1, 2010 is largely devoted to anticipating the future of higher education.
- The entire issue of the EDUCAUSE Review Magazine, Volume 45, Number 1, January/February 2010 is largely devoted to innovation and the future of higher education.
- The Future of Higher Education: Beyond the Campus, EDUCAUSE White Paper, January 2010
Podcasts and Videos
- The Future of Mobile Computing. EDUCAUSE Live! April 2011
- Future of Higher Education, Diana Oblinger, Midwest Regional Conference, March 2010.
- The Future of Higher Education: What Is the IT Professionals Role? Linda A. Jorn, James J. Koenig, David W. Dodd, Robert H. McDonald and Melissa Woo, Midwest Regional Conference, March 2010.
- 2020 Forecast: Creating the Future of Learning, KnowledgeWorks Foundation.
EDUCAUSE Staff Picks
- IT-Based Transformation in Higher Education: Possibilities and Prospects, Greg Jackson, EDUCAUSE, March 2012. A Discussion of how achieving both greater efficiency and better outcomes in higher education through information technology requires a commitment to fundamental, unfettered thinking about the future both within and outside current institutions—the kind of process many institutions are beginning to undertake.
- Rethinking Higher Education Business Models, Robert Sheets, Stephen Crawford,and Louis Soares. Center for American Progress. March 2012.
- Innovating the 21st-Century University: It’s Time!, EDUCAUSE Review, Volume 45, Number 1, 2010. If colleges and universities open up and embrace collaborative learning and collaborative knowledge production, they have a chance of surviving and even thriving in the networked, global economy of the future.
- The Changing Landscape of Higher Education, EDUCAUSE Review, Volume 46, Number 1, 2011. Focusing strictly on technology trends can obscure other environmental factors that are drivers for innovation in higher education. The authors identify ten fissures in the landscape that are creating areas of potentially tectonic change.
Library Items on this Topic
EDUCAUSE Library Items for Future of Higher Education
- Podcast: Student Success at Scale: What Have We Learned from Applying Technology to Persistent Challenges?
November 24, 2012
Speaker: Josh Jarrett, Deputy Director, Education, Postsecondary Success,Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Multiple efforts are under way to leverage technology to improve student su…
- Rethinking University Models in Light of Technology
November 14, 2012
An event at the National Press Club, "Will US Colleges and Universities Lead or Lag in Education Innovation?" , continued to probe how technology will continue to influence the evolu…
- Next Generation Learning: The Pathway to Possibility
April 3, 2013
“Next generation learning” is about engaging with today’s students through “next generation” teaching and learning designs. In this white paper, the authors present a distilled …
- Through a Glass, Brightly: ITâ€™s Impact on Higher Education by 2020
August 28, 2012
The ECAR 2012 Symposium, was held June 18–20, 2012, in Boulder, Colorado. This event gave IT and higher education leaders the chance to imagine that the year is 2020 and to speculate about th…
- Unbundling and Unmooring: Technology and the Higher Ed Tsunami
September 5, 2012
Audrey Watters—rabble-rouser, rambler, folklorist, geek, and lifelong learner—is an education journalist who has worked in the education field for the past fifteen years: as a gradua…
- Education Innovation Clusters: Accelerating Innovation through Interdisciplinary Partnerships
August 8, 2012
At a time when advances in technology and digital media hold the potential to dramatically reshape the way we approach instruction, assessment, and research, many barriers still continue to slow …
- Skating to Where the Puck Will Be
March 18, 2014
A session at the EDUCAUSE Connect: Chicago
As IT professionals, we lead technological change within our institutions. Or do we? With the growth of departmental IT and the advent of the cloud, BYOD, online learning, big data, and cyberinfr…
- The Future of Higher Education
July 27, 2012
This Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project report surveyed over 1000 internet users and experts on how they saw higher education in the year 2020. Many respondents agreed t…
- NACUBO Overview of Sequestration Implications
September 26, 2012
The National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) has provided a concise overview of the implications for federal student aid and research programs if the pending …
- Video: Game Changers
July 18, 2012
A trailer for the new book edited by EDUCAUSE President, Diana Oblinger. A trailer for the new book edited by EDUCAUSE President, Diana O…