Small-scale education entrepreneurs
A tree growing from the tower of a baroque church—Coyoacan, Mexico.
For more than a generation, the narrative about higher education entrepreneurship has focused on scale. Think about the efforts that spawned Western Governors University or that triggered the astonishing expansion of SNHU, Liberty, Grand Canyon, or Arizona State. These efforts relied on services, systems, technology, marketing, curricula, and pedagogy that could expand rapidly and that would look the same to students regardless of discipline or location. They were perfectly matched to a time when enrollment growth was among students who desired low cost and convenient online education. They set the tone for thinking about innovation in higher education (perhaps epitomized by the brief, widespread vogue of MOOCs). Many other colleges and universities mimicked their efforts, some succeeding, most failing.
The demographic conditions that fueled large-scale entrepreneurship in higher education no longer exist. It is not just that the number of high school graduates has fallen, but also that college-going rates have declined, enrollment in professional masters degree programs has stagnated, the online market is saturated, mistrust of higher education is widespread, capital is flowing to other industries.
Now is the time to pay attention to education entrepreneurs who prefer specificity over scale. This week Inside Higher Ed ran an article on new Catholic technical schools. Several young traditional Catholic colleges (Wyoming Catholic, Ave Maria, John Paul the Great) are flourishing. So are at least three new sustainability-focused colleges–Thoreau, Flagstaff, and Outer Coast. The liberal arts are getting renewed attention, whether at the University of Austin, Ralston College, or Thales College. And training for particular professions, like teaching, is a focus in several new enterprises, like Thales College and the dozens of school districts now delivering programs leading to the teaching credential. Entrepreneurship in K-12 systems is small-scale now too, as borne out by the flourishing of tiny classical schools.
The colleges created by “specificity entrepreneurs” share several characteristics. Their curricula are focused, not broad. They offer a limited number of degrees. They are organized around a particular orthodoxy or identity–shared by students, faculty, and the institution as a whole. They’ve chosen missions and values that are marginal in the broader society, but which have powerful support among those who hold them dear. Their offerings are consistent with those values. They aim to make their mark by influence not size. They are intentionally very small and also inexpensive to operate.
It is too early to know how these schools will do, and with tiny enrollments and limited resources they are potentially quite fragile. The apparatus of higher education–accreditors, professional organizations, policy-makers–seem skeptical of them as well. But they are attuned to the current cultural and educational environments, and need only modest numbers of students to break even and to meet their missions. Other schools, seeking their ways through the current educational landscape, would be wise to look to them.