Build Your Own College Degrees

Shaun, right now the trend is toward standardization. For instance, I wrote this course. However, any other teacher who presents it must use this format. However, at the World Future Society 2012 Conference in Toronto we learned about emerging trends that undermine this. First, rather than develop courses internally, education more and more will lease them. Second, as students have access to more and more distance learning options because of leasing, look for students to gather courses from multiple sources and take them to "assessment centers" which will compare what the students have completed with standard degree requirements. In other words, students will create their own degrees; the assessment centers will validate the academic validity of what students have achieved. In effect, the "assessment center" awards the degrees, and the higher educations organizations simply produce the learning components. It is similar to the Oxford University system. In it, colleges do the teaching; the University awards the degrees! We are moving toward a similar system because of emerging trends. Owning such assessment centers could be a great business opportunity out there!