Higher Education Is Not a Mixtape
That aside, it’s a fantasy that higher education is careening toward an unbundled future of consumer choice,
lower prices, and efficiency. Those making such predictions are peddling
flawed analogies, while the technology they rely on is flawed. They
just don’t understand the economics of higher education.Higher-education consumers—students and parents—behave
exactly the opposite: They shop for schools, not for professors. The
consumer choice is for the bundler—the brand, the label, university—and
not the individual course content. Consumers buy Stanford or Princeton
in a way no one ever bought EMI or Universal. College data underlines
this reality. For example, the 2012 UCLA annual survey
of incoming college freshmen found that nearly two-thirds said “a very
good academic reputation” was “very important” in their decision on
which college to attend.image via flickr:CC | Listen Missy!