Cracks are opening in the traditional, age-old structures of higher education. Terms like “credit hour” and even the definition of what it means to be a college are in flux.
Higher education is becoming “unbundled.” Individual classes and degrees are losing their connections to single institutions, in much the same way iTunes has unbundled songs from whole albums, and the Internet is unbundling television shows and networks from bulky cable packages.
Technology isn’t just changing traditional higher education. It’s helping break it down across two broad dimensions: distance and time.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean, as some contend, the traditional university is dead.