This course explores the contemporary postsecondary education industry, focusing especially on the places where disruptions of all kinds present significant opportunities and challenges for entrepreneurs, investors, and the businesses that serve this huge global market, as well as for faculty, students, and traditional higher education institutions and leaders. The center of the course is where the future of learning and the future of work meet, exploring how and where all adults develop skills that can be validated by the labor market and allow them to support themselves and contribute to society. Using a variety of readings and case studies to better understand recent disruptions and the unbundling occurring across the postsecondary landscape, from outside and inside the academy, both for-profit and nonprofit, the course will examine the future of the degree and alternatives to the traditional credential; accreditation; competency based education; affordability, student debt, and education financing models; artificial intelligence; investing in the education space; workforce, upskilling, and lifelong learning; and tertiary products and platforms that serve the educational services market. Guests will include practitioners, as well as investors, entrepreneurs, and social entrepreneurs.
3 units · GSB Letter Graded
This course explores the contemporary postsecondary education industry, focusing especially on the places where disruptions of all kinds present significant opportunities and challenges for entrepreneurs, investors, and the businesses that serve this huge global market, as well as for faculty, students, and traditional higher education institutions and leaders. The center of the course is where the future of learning and the future of work meet, exploring how and where all adults develop skills that can be validated by the labor market and allow them to support themselves and contribute to society. Using a variety of readings and case studies to better understand recent disruptions and the unbundling occurring across the postsecondary landscape, from outside and inside the academy, both for-profit and nonprofit, the course will examine the future of the degree and alternatives to the traditional credential; accreditation; competency based education; affordability, student debt, and education financing models; artificial intelligence; investing in the education space; workforce, upskilling, and lifelong learning; and tertiary products and platforms that serve the educational services market. Guests will include practitioners, as well as investors, entrepreneurs, and social entrepreneurs.
Offered in Winter 2026 at Stanford University.