Higher Ed 2.0 (What We Got Right/Wrong) | No Mercy / No Malice

We need to find ways to invest in the non-college bound, and create on-ramps into the corporate economy without the ritual of a $200,000 college education.

These programs could also liberate education from its ageism. College is the most ageist sector in the U.S., a huge industry set up to serve 18-24 year olds. Even graduate schools are designed to appeal to twenty-somethings. Yet our innovation economy means people will need new skills at every phase of life.

At 38 of the top 100 colleges in America, including five of the Ivies, there are more students from the top 1 percent of income earning households than there are from the bottom 60 percent.

Admission to a top school can be life changing, but in a country that graduates over 3.5 million people from high school every year, the 1,700-person freshman class at Harvard is immaterial. Over the past 30 years, the number of seats at Ivy League schools has increased only 14 percent, while the number of high school graduates has expanded by 44 p... See more