A Harvard business professor predicts that half of the colleges in the United States will be bankrupt within the next nine years.
Professor Clayton Christensen, known for his theory of “disruptive innovation” and his book The Innovator’s Dilemma, recently released a publication entitled The Innovative University. In this new book, Christensen and his co-author Henry Eyring analyze the current state of American universities. Their conclusion is that online education is far more cost-effective for students and as the demand for online courses increases, actual attendance at traditional universities will decrease.
This is a sobering prediction for educators across the country.
At the Innovation + Disruption in Higher Education symposium in May, Christensen offered a prediction, saying, “50 percent of the 4,000 colleges and universities in the U.S. will be bankrupt in 10 to 15 years.”
Recently, Christensen moved up the timeline. At Salesforce.org’s Higher Education Summit, he told the 1,500 attendees, “If you’re asking whether the providers get disrupted within a decade — I might bet that it takes nine years rather than 10.”
Christensen is not alone in his gloomy outlook on traditional colleges. For years, the Department of Education has been predicting college closures to triple, and it appears as though such predictions are beginning to become reality.
The low cost and high demand for online courses and resources are proving difficult for traditional colleges and universities to keep up. Despite the fact that traditional colleges may not be able to compete with the demand for online education, Christensen encourages educators to keep the right perspective.
“Maybe the most important thing that we add value to our students is the ability to change their lives,” he reminds industry leaders.
