Where are the Tipping Points?
If you don’t know much about branch campuses, you could be forgiven for thinking that the only innovation in higher education is happening through MOOCs (massive open online courses) or the creation of branch campuses in Asia and the Middle East. It’s not nearly that simple. MOOCs will continue to evolve in interesting directions, including the direction of awarding academic credit for course completion and offering badges or certificates for completing a set of related courses. I find international branches much less interesting, because I think other countries will develop their own programs, over time, and invite American institutions to go home. More importantly, however, there is much, much more going on than MOOCs and international branches. The range of online and hybrid/blended programs is astonishing, and no one knows which approaches will prove to be most attractive. For sure, however, we know that online enrollment continues to g...