num_pages: 216
description: The price of college tuition has increased more than any other major good or service for the last twenty years. Nine out of ten American high school seniors aspire to go to college yet the United States has fallen from world leader to only the tenth most educated nation. Almost half of college students don't graduate; those who do have unprecedented levels of federal and private student loan debt which constitutes a credit bubble similar to the mortgage crisis. The system particularly fails the first-generation the low-income and students of color who predominate in coming generations. What we need to know is changing more quickly than ever and a rising tide of information threatens to swamp knowledge and wisdom. America cannot regain its economic and cultural leadership with an increasingly ignorant population. Our choice is clear: Radically change the way higher education is delivered or resign ourselves to never having enough of it. The roots of the words university and college both mean community. In the age of constant connectedness and social media it's time for the monolithic millennium-old ivy-covered walls to undergo a phase change into something much lighter more permeable and fluid. The future lies in personal learning networks and paths learning that blends experiential and digital approaches and free and open-source educational models. Increasingly you will decide what when where and with whom you want to learn and you will learn by doing. The university is the cathedral of modernity and rationality and with our whole civilization in crisis we are poised on the brink of Reformation.
language: English
title: DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education
publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing