Of all the problems facing the higher education sector today, the lack of differentiation may be the root cause of many of them. Too many colleges and universities look like every other college and university, offering similar degrees, similar student services, similar athletic opportunities, their faculty publishing in the same journals and attending the same conferences. As the size of the undergraduate student market shrinks—as we now live through the long-predicted “demographic cliff”—the same institutions desperately chase a share of an ever-shrinking market. Perhaps rather than defining the problem as a lack of differentiation, we might instead call it “the drift toward uniformity.”
In David J. Staley's new IngenioUs blog article, he suggests that this steady move toward uniformity is driven by 'FOLD: “fear of looking different” from every other college or university.' And rather than protecting our institutions from the headwinds, Staley cautions that an increasingly standardized model may actually heighten our vulnerability to disruption. Listen here to learn more.
