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The Abundant University: Remaking Higher Education for a Digital World
Why our current system of higher education is financially and morally unsustainable and how to address the crisis with the creative implementation of digital technologies.
For too long, our system of higher education has been defined by scarcity in enrollment, scarcity in instruction, and scarcity in credentials. In addition to failing students professionally, this system has exacerbated social injustice and socioeconomic stratification across the globe. In The Abundant University, Michael D. Smith argues that the only way to create a financially and morally sustainable higher education system is by embracing digital technologies for enrolling, instructing, and credentialing students—the same technologies that we have seen create abundance in access to resources in industry after industry.
The Abundant University explains how we got our current system, why it’s such an expensive, inefficient mess, and how a system based on exclusivity cannot foster inclusivity. Smith challenges the resistance to digital technologies that we have already seen among numerous institutions, citing the examples of faculty resistance toward digital learning platforms. While acknowledging the understandable self-preservation instinct of our current system of residential education, Smith makes a case for how technology can engender greater educational opportunity and create changes that will benefit students, employers, and society as a whole.
For too long, our system of higher education has been defined by scarcity in enrollment, scarcity in instruction, and scarcity in credentials. In addition to failing students professionally, this system has exacerbated social injustice and socioeconomic stratification across the globe. In The Abundant University, Michael D. Smith argues that the only way to create a financially and morally sustainable higher education system is by embracing digital technologies for enrolling, instructing, and credentialing students—the same technologies that we have seen create abundance in access to resources in industry after industry.
The Abundant University explains how we got our current system, why it’s such an expensive, inefficient mess, and how a system based on exclusivity cannot foster inclusivity. Smith challenges the resistance to digital technologies that we have already seen among numerous institutions, citing the examples of faculty resistance toward digital learning platforms. While acknowledging the understandable self-preservation instinct of our current system of residential education, Smith makes a case for how technology can engender greater educational opportunity and create changes that will benefit students, employers, and society as a whole.
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294 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 19, 2023
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December 21, 2023
The author is a Carnegie Mellon University business professor whose area of expertise is how new technologies transform industries, with a particular focus on the entertainment sector. In the book, he uses his expertise to draw parallels between what he believes will happen in higher education and what has occurred in the entertainment industry.
The book begins by describing Joyce Carol Oates' yearly creative writing seminar at Princeton. Access is limited. For starters, you need to be someone with the credentials and money to attend Princeton. Then, you must choose Princeton over other options. And even if you are a Princeton student, demand for the ten seats in this class is far greater than supply.
In contrast, almost anyone can take Joyce Carol Oates' MasterClass. While the experience won't equal her Princeton seminar, participants who apply themselves will learn a lot, and time and cost commitments are much lower. Smith bases his vision of higher education’s future on this model.
He outlines four fundamental truths:
· First, our current system of higher education, despite its good intentions, is financially and morally unsustainable.
· Second, the problem is systemic, which means we’re unlikely to solve it from within our existing scarcity-based model of higher education.
· Third, digital technologies give us an opportunity to create new systems of education based on abundance rather than scarcity — a revolutionary shift.
· Fourth, to participate in this change, those of us who work in higher education must rediscover and embrace our core mission as educators.
Smith believes that higher education’s mission is to enable as many students as possible to discover and develop their unique talents, so they can make a positive impact on society. He contends that many people working in higher education have confused their mission with their business model, and that model is at risk of being replaced by new technologies. Higher education's business model uses control over three scarce resources to maintain the market dominance of colleges and universities: access, instruction, and credentials. In Smith's view, digital technologies make these resources abundant rather than scarce.
Scarcity of Access
The concept of scarcity of access refers both to the limited number of seats in a traditional classroom and the exclusivity of higher education. Much of the information in this section was familiar, but some concepts surprised me. For example, I already knew of studies showing that elite colleges exacerbate inequality rather than alleviating it. Smith cites research showing that children born into the top 1 percent of the income distribution are now seventy-seven times more likely to attend a highly selective college than those born into the bottom 20 percent. It is also well known that college rankings have problems. A good example is Georgia State University's decision to deemphasize SAT scores. This approach was incredibly successful at increasing access, but it caused the university to drop in the rankings.
Rankings have also traditionally rewarded spending. Smith quotes William Kirwan, a former chancellor of the University of Maryland system: "If you could deliver the same quality at a lower cost, you'd go down in the rankings." I was surprised to learn that highly selective colleges spend much more on students than they receive in tuition. Smith cites statistics indicating that the most selective colleges spend $100,000 per student on student-oriented services, while the least selective colleges spend less than $5,000. Similarly, I hadn't known that some elite colleges and universities appear to "recruit" applicants who are unlikely to be accepted to maintain a low acceptance rate.
Smith proposes an open enrollment online education model to alleviate the scarcity of access. He believes that online classes can provide almost unlimited accessibility. A lecture hall can hold 100 students, but an unlimited number of students can access a video of the lecture given in that lecture hall. Smith singles out Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) as an example of the possibilities. SNHU increased its enrollment from 3,000 in 1973 to 175,000 now. For undergraduate programs, students need only have a high school diploma or GED to enroll. Notably, between 2011 and 2021, online programs at SNHU did not raise tuition, while private four-year institutions increased tuition by 40 percent.
Scarcity of Instruction
Three problems are associated with the scarcity of instruction: the limited ability to scale traditional classroom teaching, the incentive system for faculty, and the lack of individualized instruction. First, in-person education is largely immune to productivity gains from technology. Smith compares instructors to violinists. The economy is vastly different than it was in the 1800s, but violinists still produce about the same output.
Second, faculty members are selected based on their reputation as researchers and not teachers. A closely related problem is that faculty research is highly specialized, but faculty often teach general courses, requiring them to explain material they don't know well themselves. Additionally, traditional classroom instruction does not allow for individual attention. This is particularly problematic for larger classes where students have diverse backgrounds and abilities.
Smith proposes various solutions to the problem of limited instruction. First, he views digital platforms as offering increased access to experts. Of course, in the post-pandemic era, this is common even in traditional classroom settings due to the ability to have guest lectures via Zoom. Smith also mentions mastery-based evaluation systems that do not rely on "seat time" and enhancing teaching with analytics as additional ways to eliminate scarcity in instruction.
Smith's analysis fails to adequately account for the role of assessments in teaching. Giving students feedback and assigning grades pose significant problems for scaling up instruction unless all grading is reduced to computer-graded assessments like multiple-choice questions. The university-based online courses I've taken solve this problem by having "regular" faculty members record videos and (perhaps) help design classes, with facilitators providing pass/fail grading and feedback. The situation isn't ideal, and it would be worse for classes where letter grades are assigned.
That said, I was intrigued by the book's discussion of calibrated peer grading, which involves students grading their classmates' assignments using a rubric. According to a study, grades given by this method were indistinguishable from those given by trained teaching assistants. Plus, students learned a lot from grading each other's work. While that's interesting, I don‘t believe that students would accept the widespread use of this technique for assigning letter grades.
Scarcity of Credentials
Colleges and universities benefit from their role as gatekeepers of credentials that prepare students for successful careers. Even Smith concedes, "As long as a degree is needed to get a good job, the university system is safe from disruption." Degrees matter because the job market operates on an asymmetric information basis; employers know very little about potential employees, especially those with limited work experience. According to Smith, asymmetrical information can lead to credentialism (degree), elitism (elite school), and GPA bias.
A college degree signifies to employers that you possess the necessary skills, knowledge, and motivation to succeed. That is why employers often hire people with degrees unrelated to their jobs. Of course, many college graduates have poor skills or character traits, and plenty of people without degrees have these assets. But if degree holders are more likely to possess favorable characteristics on average, the degree remains a credible signal.
Smith addresses the arguments made in Failure to Disrupt, a book that examined Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). That book concluded that MOOCs and similar learning technologies are more likely to improve learning incrementally than to alter it fundamentally. Smith argues that Failure to Disrupt did not adequately emphasize that credentials are not yet as "abundant" as access and instruction have become. He believes this is beginning to change. He cites IBM as an example of a company that has eliminated degree requirements for many jobs. (My state – Pennsylvania -- has done the same.) Similarly, Google has started offering low-cost certificates that may be equivalent to degrees in certain fields.
I am skeptical of Smith's assertion that the four-year degree will face widespread devaluation. Unless there is a prolonged labor shortage, employers will continue using objective filters such as degrees to narrow candidate pools. Smith's analysis does, however, highlight how heavily the current higher education business model relies on a four-year degree being the coin of the realm, so to speak.
Conclusion
Smith sees clear parallels between how technology has affected the entertainment industry and how it might impact higher education. According to Smith, entertainment and higher education industry leaders became overconfident, overpriced their products, and stuck to physical world business models. They dismissed new digital technologies because they believed their product had superior quality, people were willing to pay a high price for it, and market dominance would protect them. Still, new technologies can enter the marketplace and take over so much that consumers can't imagine life without them. Smith believes this has already happened in entertainment, and in higher education, he thinks this is happening now.
Though I find the book interesting, I am not convinced by the author's conclusions. Specifically, I don’t think that the tide has turned on the bachelor's degree, or that it will anytime soon. Overall, I would recommend this book for those who are interested in the future of online education.
The book begins by describing Joyce Carol Oates' yearly creative writing seminar at Princeton. Access is limited. For starters, you need to be someone with the credentials and money to attend Princeton. Then, you must choose Princeton over other options. And even if you are a Princeton student, demand for the ten seats in this class is far greater than supply.
In contrast, almost anyone can take Joyce Carol Oates' MasterClass. While the experience won't equal her Princeton seminar, participants who apply themselves will learn a lot, and time and cost commitments are much lower. Smith bases his vision of higher education’s future on this model.
He outlines four fundamental truths:
· First, our current system of higher education, despite its good intentions, is financially and morally unsustainable.
· Second, the problem is systemic, which means we’re unlikely to solve it from within our existing scarcity-based model of higher education.
· Third, digital technologies give us an opportunity to create new systems of education based on abundance rather than scarcity — a revolutionary shift.
· Fourth, to participate in this change, those of us who work in higher education must rediscover and embrace our core mission as educators.
Smith believes that higher education’s mission is to enable as many students as possible to discover and develop their unique talents, so they can make a positive impact on society. He contends that many people working in higher education have confused their mission with their business model, and that model is at risk of being replaced by new technologies. Higher education's business model uses control over three scarce resources to maintain the market dominance of colleges and universities: access, instruction, and credentials. In Smith's view, digital technologies make these resources abundant rather than scarce.
Scarcity of Access
The concept of scarcity of access refers both to the limited number of seats in a traditional classroom and the exclusivity of higher education. Much of the information in this section was familiar, but some concepts surprised me. For example, I already knew of studies showing that elite colleges exacerbate inequality rather than alleviating it. Smith cites research showing that children born into the top 1 percent of the income distribution are now seventy-seven times more likely to attend a highly selective college than those born into the bottom 20 percent. It is also well known that college rankings have problems. A good example is Georgia State University's decision to deemphasize SAT scores. This approach was incredibly successful at increasing access, but it caused the university to drop in the rankings.
Rankings have also traditionally rewarded spending. Smith quotes William Kirwan, a former chancellor of the University of Maryland system: "If you could deliver the same quality at a lower cost, you'd go down in the rankings." I was surprised to learn that highly selective colleges spend much more on students than they receive in tuition. Smith cites statistics indicating that the most selective colleges spend $100,000 per student on student-oriented services, while the least selective colleges spend less than $5,000. Similarly, I hadn't known that some elite colleges and universities appear to "recruit" applicants who are unlikely to be accepted to maintain a low acceptance rate.
Smith proposes an open enrollment online education model to alleviate the scarcity of access. He believes that online classes can provide almost unlimited accessibility. A lecture hall can hold 100 students, but an unlimited number of students can access a video of the lecture given in that lecture hall. Smith singles out Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) as an example of the possibilities. SNHU increased its enrollment from 3,000 in 1973 to 175,000 now. For undergraduate programs, students need only have a high school diploma or GED to enroll. Notably, between 2011 and 2021, online programs at SNHU did not raise tuition, while private four-year institutions increased tuition by 40 percent.
Scarcity of Instruction
Three problems are associated with the scarcity of instruction: the limited ability to scale traditional classroom teaching, the incentive system for faculty, and the lack of individualized instruction. First, in-person education is largely immune to productivity gains from technology. Smith compares instructors to violinists. The economy is vastly different than it was in the 1800s, but violinists still produce about the same output.
Second, faculty members are selected based on their reputation as researchers and not teachers. A closely related problem is that faculty research is highly specialized, but faculty often teach general courses, requiring them to explain material they don't know well themselves. Additionally, traditional classroom instruction does not allow for individual attention. This is particularly problematic for larger classes where students have diverse backgrounds and abilities.
Smith proposes various solutions to the problem of limited instruction. First, he views digital platforms as offering increased access to experts. Of course, in the post-pandemic era, this is common even in traditional classroom settings due to the ability to have guest lectures via Zoom. Smith also mentions mastery-based evaluation systems that do not rely on "seat time" and enhancing teaching with analytics as additional ways to eliminate scarcity in instruction.
Smith's analysis fails to adequately account for the role of assessments in teaching. Giving students feedback and assigning grades pose significant problems for scaling up instruction unless all grading is reduced to computer-graded assessments like multiple-choice questions. The university-based online courses I've taken solve this problem by having "regular" faculty members record videos and (perhaps) help design classes, with facilitators providing pass/fail grading and feedback. The situation isn't ideal, and it would be worse for classes where letter grades are assigned.
That said, I was intrigued by the book's discussion of calibrated peer grading, which involves students grading their classmates' assignments using a rubric. According to a study, grades given by this method were indistinguishable from those given by trained teaching assistants. Plus, students learned a lot from grading each other's work. While that's interesting, I don‘t believe that students would accept the widespread use of this technique for assigning letter grades.
Scarcity of Credentials
Colleges and universities benefit from their role as gatekeepers of credentials that prepare students for successful careers. Even Smith concedes, "As long as a degree is needed to get a good job, the university system is safe from disruption." Degrees matter because the job market operates on an asymmetric information basis; employers know very little about potential employees, especially those with limited work experience. According to Smith, asymmetrical information can lead to credentialism (degree), elitism (elite school), and GPA bias.
A college degree signifies to employers that you possess the necessary skills, knowledge, and motivation to succeed. That is why employers often hire people with degrees unrelated to their jobs. Of course, many college graduates have poor skills or character traits, and plenty of people without degrees have these assets. But if degree holders are more likely to possess favorable characteristics on average, the degree remains a credible signal.
Smith addresses the arguments made in Failure to Disrupt, a book that examined Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). That book concluded that MOOCs and similar learning technologies are more likely to improve learning incrementally than to alter it fundamentally. Smith argues that Failure to Disrupt did not adequately emphasize that credentials are not yet as "abundant" as access and instruction have become. He believes this is beginning to change. He cites IBM as an example of a company that has eliminated degree requirements for many jobs. (My state – Pennsylvania -- has done the same.) Similarly, Google has started offering low-cost certificates that may be equivalent to degrees in certain fields.
I am skeptical of Smith's assertion that the four-year degree will face widespread devaluation. Unless there is a prolonged labor shortage, employers will continue using objective filters such as degrees to narrow candidate pools. Smith's analysis does, however, highlight how heavily the current higher education business model relies on a four-year degree being the coin of the realm, so to speak.
Conclusion
Smith sees clear parallels between how technology has affected the entertainment industry and how it might impact higher education. According to Smith, entertainment and higher education industry leaders became overconfident, overpriced their products, and stuck to physical world business models. They dismissed new digital technologies because they believed their product had superior quality, people were willing to pay a high price for it, and market dominance would protect them. Still, new technologies can enter the marketplace and take over so much that consumers can't imagine life without them. Smith believes this has already happened in entertainment, and in higher education, he thinks this is happening now.
Though I find the book interesting, I am not convinced by the author's conclusions. Specifically, I don’t think that the tide has turned on the bachelor's degree, or that it will anytime soon. Overall, I would recommend this book for those who are interested in the future of online education.
January 1, 2024
Really interesting read! Explains how we got the current system of higher education, why it’s so expensive, exclusive, and inefficient.
The text makes a case for technological innovation and disruption in education.
The text makes a case for technological innovation and disruption in education.
April 21, 2025
The author make a good point to discuss the higher education models in the future, which is very attractive and eluminating. Do we have to sacrifice the deep human interaction, mentorship, and socialization in traditional education, or is there other ways to compensate it in the AI age?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 18, 2024
The Abundant University by Michael D. Smith is a thought-provoking exploration of the economics of scarce and abundant resources, and how digital technologies in particular will continue to challenge the traditional business model of the 4-year residential institution. Smith is persuasive in his argument that embracing abundance (and digital delivery) is essential to promoting financial sustainability, improving access and equity, and helping schools truly live up to their mission-driven ideals.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews