This week, coinciding with the opening of the traditional fall semester at many colleges, PBS NewsHour begins a five-part series on the future of higher education called Rethinking College. If you can’t wait until Monday, you can watch much of the series (and maybe all of it) online.
The first episode kicks off with a profile of Southern New Hampshire University, which has become a kind of poster child for the new approach to college, and its president, Paul LeBlanc. It continues with NewsHour’s Hari Sreenivasan talking to students, lawmakers and others about high student debt load, skyrocketing costs and the other financial issues facing students today.
None of this is anything new to anyone who’s been paying attention, and the first installment doesn’t shed much new light on the situation with higher ed in the U.S. today. If you read The Chronicle of Higher Education or Inside Higher Ed with any frequency, or if you have read Jeff Selingo’s College (Un)Bound (here’s my review), then you know the story.
Moreover, because the “Rethinking College” series runs on PBS, probably the only people who will watch any of it will be those who are already aware of the main issues.
Even so, I plan to tune in, asynchronously online if not during the actual programs. Who knows? Maybe I’ll have some rethinking to do as a result.
Higher Ed Marketing 