AMERiCA LEARNiNG MEDiA

Over the next ten to 20 years, the global distribution of higher education degrees will undergo a significant change in terms of delivery, business model and pricing. These changes will bring about a serious disruption in the way national education programs are structured, funded and accredited.

by Graeme Coomber, Global CEO of EDTRIN

The concept of global degrees has been much mooted in recent years but they now present both a significant challenge to existing institutions and an opportunity for new business models. The “eureka” moment for me came a couple of years ago when I was in Bahrain, where I came across a local online university delivering Malaysian MBAs to Saudi students in a blended manner. It was a true cross-cultural and education phenomenon.

What we will see in the future will be a reduction in the number of individual universities issuing their own degrees and, instead, a focus on a number of high profile “degree issuing” institutions.

The thought process behind this statement goes like this:

1) The current higher education delivery model is dictated by the geographic boundaries of the institution involved – that is, to get an Oxford degree you have go to Oxford.

2) True global degrees will soon become the norm as proctoring technologies become more common and accreditation issues are sorted out.

3) This will enable the delivery of degrees without the limitation of geographic boundaries at reduced costs, due to software model economics and economies-of-scale.

4) This will give rise to the situation where you could be an Australian student, for example, considering whether to take Monash Degree or one from Harvard (blended delivery of course) at the same cost. Which one would you pick?

5) Local universities will now evolve into blended learning delivery centers for the 50 or so Global Universities that will rise to the top of the “education beauty contest” stack.

6) Branding, always the prime driver for the attractiveness of any degree, will now become even more important.

The net result of these developments will be that more people will be educated at lower cost with an associated increase in the level of quality – which must be a good thing. Now, if we can only get a job for all these intelligent people…

December 2015

Graeme Coomber is Global CEO of EDTRIN, a publicly listed company which is developing an integrated physical / digital education ecosystem designed to assist lifelong personal advancement for individuals through timely, personally relevant educational resources and ongoing career management.

Graeme is also one of the founder members of The Company of Thought, an international Think Tank which aims to help identify, analyze and generally shed light on developments in the corporate online learning industry worldwide – and discuss their implications for business.