How AI Could Reshape Higher Ed—and Why a University Proactively Sought a Merger

Jeff Selingo and I have been out on the road early with Future U. this year—with a couple high-energy episodes in front of live audiences at Butler and Adobe’s EduMAX conference coming to you soon.

One of the topics that’s been front and center in the course of our travels is what’s the role of the University in the age of AI? It’s something we’ve discussed here before, but Jeff put it more bluntly on our latest episode, “How AI Could Reshape Higher Ed”:

“If AI could develop and teach a course, and if AI can take a course, both of which, by the way, have happened, what’s the purpose of the university at the end of the day?”

In our answer, we first took pains to separate out the different segments of higher education—and how the answer likely differs. After all, quality can only be understood relative to the Job to Be Done.

Among the many things we discussed was that much of the value for some students in college comes not from the classes they take, but from the extracurriculars they do. In my view, that’s not necessarily something new—it reflects my own college experience from 25 years ago.

You’ll want to listen to the whole episode, though, as we touched upon rampant grade inflation, whether employers will continue to trust the college degree as a signal, the Trump higher education “compact,” whether colleges are violating antitrust laws, disruptive innovation in the LMS market, and why I think startup colleges are a promising part of the equation to many of the challenges we identify. Listen to the whole episode here—and then weigh in with your thoughts in the comments.

Why a University Proactively Sought a Merger

Mergers and acquisitions are usually seen as bad things in higher ed.

But there’s a growing sense that many colleges could benefit by teaming up, especially as the demographic cliff likely means fewer students. Jeff and I continued to press into this topic in a new episode of Future U. where we interviewed Walter Iwanenko Jr, the president of Gannon University in Erie, Pa., about how and why the institution proactively sought a merger with Ursuline College near Cleveland.

When we think of colleges pursuing acquisitions, we often think of big schools—like Northeastern University. But Gannon, Elon, and other schools are proactively pursuing them as well—and we wanted to learn more.

Iwanenko shared insights on the criteria they used when they looked for a partner—and why it almost caused them to miss Ursuline—and how he got the campus on board. Fascinating to me was also how Ursuline hired a president on a short-term contract with the explicit goal of leading the merger. Their hire? A past president who had retired. That seems like an important part of the equation for making this work.

As M&A becomes more important to the health of colleges, check out our episode, “Why a University Proactively Sought a Merger.”

Why Can’t Schools Keep Up with the Nursing Shortage?

The Hechinger Report has a story about the nursing shortage, “Nurses are in high demand. Why can’t nursing schools keep up?”

This is something I’ve written here about, too.

Their answer? “Too few teachers, too few slots for hands-on clinical training”.

The story touches on an interesting flash point around how to solve the latter. It reads: “Some nursing schools want to allow greater use of training technology to widen access — such as high-tech mannequins that simulate heart attacks and other medical conditions.”

But there is lots of predictable pushback.

Yet it strikes me that using technology and AI to create high-end simulations—both with mannequins and in virtual reality—could be a huge part of the solution—and improve training!

How could that be?

A strange requirement in the training of nurses right now is that nursing students complete a certain number of hours “of direct patient care under the supervision of nursing staff at a hospital or other health care facility to graduate and qualify to take the national licensing exam.” In California, for example, the centerpiece of the article, the state requires 500 hours.

But as readers of this newsletter know, time spent doesn’t necessarily equate to learning.

In the case of nurses, while a practicum is undoubtedly important, we are leaving some of this to chance. What if a nurse doesn’t see or master certain situations or patient conditions that are important for their training in their 500 hours? Could some portion of that time be reallocated to mastery-based (or competency-based) learning where they must participate in simulations of a variety of scenarios they may experience—and demonstrate mastery in handling them before they progress?

In other words, let’s use the constraints on hospital time as an opportunity to create a more robust and reliable learning experience for the individuals on the frontlines of our health. Time to innovate.

‘Job Seekers and hiring managers are using AI, and nobody’s happy’

An article in the Boston Globe, “Job Seekers and hiring managers are using AI, and nobody’s happy” describes the dance between those looking for jobs and those hiring for jobs and the increased use of AI by both—and how it’s not helping either.

For readers of this newsletter, that won’t be a surprise. Bob Moesta and I described why this would occur in March in a piece in Time Magazine titled, “AI-Powered Tools May Make It Even Harder to Find a Job.” The insights were based on our national bestselling book Job Moves: 9 Steps for Making Progress in Your Career, which is feeling more and more relevant every day.

As always, thanks for reading, writing, and listening.