We live in a world where information is at our fingertips. Understanding, analysis and creative problem solving is at a premium. At a time when undergraduate college degrees have become a necessity for success in today's world, governments are reducing their educational subsidies. Limited resources are a fact of each business sector. Tradition is not going to carry industries or academic institutions.
Students are more diverse.
A larger percentage of the population is attending school and they are not following the traditional paths of high school, college, job. We will all need to retrain several times to keep up with our rapidly changing world. People in diverse situations will need specific types of training. How academics responds to this need will not only effect our institutions' future, but also the ability of our society to grasp complex issues and to employ a sufficiently broad base of expertise to flnd solutions. Our lives are growing more complicated.