Entrepreneuring the Future of Higher Education

Book excerpt: Projections are frightening. Even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, financial considerations were forcing the closing of increasing numbers of American colleges and universities. Higher education in the United States is facing a tsunami of economic issues and the abrupt shift to on-line learning has only accelerated the process. But it doesn’t have to be this way. The wobbly two-legged stool that supports virtually every American school – tuition and endowment – was never designed to be sustainable into the 21st century. Instead, the university leaders of the future must embrace the best elements of the most forward-seeing and nimble practitioners of modern business – the entrepreneur. Entrepreneuring the Future of Higher Education: Radical Transformation in Times of Profound Change is that rare nuts-and-bolts guide that provides the essential tools for colleges and universities to switch from barely surviving to thriving. Assisted by an impressive array experts and visionaries, higher education author and futurist Dr. Mary Landon Darden presents a do-able roadmap out of the morass of escalating costs and decreasing revenue. In no-nonsense, sometimes blunt language, Darden lays out specific, revenue streams available to virtually every college – and a step-by-step primer on how to achieve them. Entrepreneuring is not a theoretical argument, parsed with passive-voice modifiers and exceptions. It is a blueprint on how to revive, restore and secure the academy in the second decade of the 21st century. Each chapter addresses significant failures (or missed opportunity) that virtually all modern colleges can rapidly address and reform. Too many institutions are hopelessly attached to the failed practices of the past. Students have changed. Governments have changed. Economic engines and drivers have changed. The need to financially support higher education has not – and it is more crucial than ever. Entrepreneuring the Future of Higher Education: Radical Transformation in Times of Profound Change is the answer for the post-COVID academy in America: Practical, unapologetically direct, awash in real-life applications and answers.