Higher Education is Changing (?)

A couple of items in the news recently have combined with a local tidbit to raise an eyebrow about what higher ed will look like in 10 or 20 years:

1) A local graduate school (I will withhold the name) has a team looking into whether tuition-driven universities will even exist in the near future, and how to evolve fast enough to stay relevant

2) Take it with a grain of salt since this article is from MIT news, but this is actually creating a pretty big stir.
“MIT and Harvard launch a ‘revolution in education’”

3) Offering scholarships in exchange for a stake in student start-ups (Clarkson University)
http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/25/pf/college/tuition-business/index.htm

Flash in the pan or the beginning of a big shift….?

From my own viewpoint I will say that I think any school of any level not looking hard at how to become nimble enough to iterate and evolve quickly in response to our changing environment – in all aspects – risks becoming irrelevant.

My crystal ball leaves me to think that in the not-too-distant future an obviously superior paradigm of education will break through, and the exodus from the current system to the new system will mimic the flow from MySpace to Facebook in scope and timeline.