This University Is Leading an Education Revolution
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/new-graduates-world-john-fallon?trk=li_google_corp_MondayMotivation
Earlier this week, I saw a glimpse of the future of higher education as I delivered the commencement address for Southern New Hampshire University’s online program graduates. Southern New Hampshire University is a unique place. It’s a non-profit, private university with a physical campus in Manchester, NH - but it’s also one of the fast growing providers of online higher education in the United States (and the world).
On that sunny afternoon last Sunday, nearly 750 students, from parents to professionals, twenty-somethings to baby-boomers, came together to walk across the stage and become graduates in a way that was unimaginable only 20 years ago. Their online degrees meant that most of them had never met in person or even set foot onto the SNHU campus before that afternoon. It struck me that I was witnessing an education revolution in progress. I truly believe that what SNHU is doing today, other universities around the world will do tomorrow.
The vast majority of colleges and universities are still offering an education designed a long time ago to meet the challenges of the last century. It works for many students – but it doesn’t cater to everyone – a problem SNHU is trying to solve (along with help from partners including Pearson).
SNHU and other institutions creating innovative online degree programs are pioneers. The institutions no longer decide for students what they’re going to get; they ask students what they need. Based on the answers, a student and their university are re-designing higher education together. These programs are keeping the best parts of the old model and experimenting with promising new approaches and technologies. They are finding creative ways to meet the challenges of this century—the challenges that students will face in their day-to-day lives and careers.
The students I met in Manchester are pioneers too, because what they are doing is daring and new in its own right. The world is paying attention, and starting to follow their example. It’s an example set by students who have connected their education directly to their career path and who want to learn in more convenient and dynamic ways.
Because of that, these students are leaders, too. They are leading all of us to a new future in which a high-quality education is more affordable, convenient, and relevant. In this future, many more people will have degrees that lead to good jobs, and the world will be more equal and more prosperous as a result.
For these students, months of difficult online work culminated with so much more than just a walk across the stage. Their work has led to a new world of opportunities, the realization of long held ambitions and the promise of a better life for their families. For many of us in the education community, the answers to many of the questions about education access, college affordability and increased earning power-rested with these graduates.
The education community must go to greater lengths support these pioneers - who remind us that the path from learning to earning often runs in unconventional directions.
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