Reclaiming Purpose

CHAPTER 9Developing Better Humans for the Age of AI

I spend a lot of time in the education-technology sphere—that community of innovators, investors, and educators—thinking about ways to improve, extend, and, for many of those involved, make money from education. Every April, thousands of us travel to San Diego, California, for the ASU + GSV Summit, the Lollapalooza of edtech, a combination of conference, networking, and speed dating for startup founders and investors. It is the event everyone loves to complain about (too crowded, too transactional, too long lines for coffee) and no one wants to miss. For most of those attending, one foundational belief is so evident that it does not require recitation: higher education is broken and ripe for disruption.

Yet for all the talk of disruption in higher education—whether around for-profit providers, massive open online courses, coding bootcamps, or competency-based education—higher education has been pretty resilient and has still not experienced the kind of off-the-cliff disruption that occurred in industries like music, journalism, or retail. Higher education is regulated through the federal financial aid system and plays multiple roles outside of educating students, such as research, sports entertainment, and serving as a local economic engine. Higher education has been largely protected from disruption, but not from criticism. The public, in the form of employers, policymakers, and families, are demanding change, and the fundamentals ...