Turning university prestige into something students value
Matthew Hartley, Executive Director of the Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy (Penn AHEAD) and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Penn GSE, makes the case for innovation and value-added services at prestigious institutions of higher education.
Comparing the offerings of an iPhone as opposed to a flip phone — both devices for making phone calls, ostensibly — he argues high-cost institutions will have to find ways to distinguish themselves from lower-cost regional competitors, particularly in fields such as teacher education.
"Innovations could include offering a degree programme where learning opportunities never end – by networking successive cohorts of graduates, building them into a community that shares information on an ongoing basis. It could form a virtuous circle, where researchers at the university draw data from the experiences of alumni and then push out key research findings, or design professional development activities to ensure that its graduates are always at the forefront of their chosen field."