A Coming Revolution in Education: Relevancy vs. Reputation

I suspect that that there is an oncoming revolution in the higher education industry that many in higher education may not yet see. In the near future student consumers will no longer solely select a college or university based upon the societal reputation of the school, but likely will instead evaluate the specific relevancy of the university to the individual. This dramatic paradigm shift from reputation to relevancy will be driven by social media technologies that dramatically increase the student consumer’s visibility to the actual alumni outcomes for a university and to the actual opinions of current university students rather than just a university’s overall reputation in society.

History

There are currently several thousand institutions of higher education in the US and for decades many prospective students have used a university’s reputation within society overall as a proxy for quality because the education industry does not have easily comparable products and outcomes. Prospective students therefore often make their university selection solely based upon the overall reputation of the university in general society.

Therefore, universities with a long history of operation may often have a higher recognition and reputation in society even if their alumni outcomes may not always justify the reputation . Furthermore, some universities often invest significantly in non-academic activities (ex. football and basketball teams) to generate significant recognition (and as a by-product, reputation) in society.

Lastly, many universities have used a highly selective admissions model to greatly enhance their reputation in society. These universities rely upon the practice of only selecting the most accomplished students into their university. This high level of exclusivity causes society to assume that because the university is so selective it must be an outstanding university.

Paradigm Shift Coming

As has been the case in many industries in which consumers previously had limited visibility and transparency into product quality and pricing, technology will likely quickly and profoundly impact the education industry.

Advances in social media technology are now providing the student consumer with much greater ability to review and judge the actual, specific alumni outcomes of universities and to receive direct reviews from actual students from the university.

One of these new social media technologies is the alumni feature in LinkedIn which currently allows prospective students to view extremely detailed information on the graduates from a given university; where the alumni live, what industries they work in, what job level they have achieved, etc. This is in great contrast with the current state where many universities tout the metrics on the incoming students (ex. high school GPA, SAT scores, class rank, etc.) This wealth of easily available information on the universities graduates (not applicants) makes the prospective student a far more informed consumer and enables them to begin to make direct apples-to-apples comparisons between universities.

Another social media technology behind this paradigm shift is Facebook, the most wildly popular social media platform. Current university students now actively and frequently provide commentary on their own experience at a given university and will provide both positive and negative feedback on Facebook to prospective students who search for or directly solicit such feedback. This easy access to current students in the university and voluminous student experience info at a university also enables the prospective student to have additional feedback when making their university selection.

Ultimately, social media technologies like Facebook and LinkedIn provide students with vast amounts of information on particular universities which empowers the prospective student to make their university selection based upon how relevant the university is to that prospective student and their career goals and no longer have to blindly rely upon the reputation of the university in society alone.

Conclusions

1. It is likely that the overall higher education industry maybe caught sleeping as the paradigm shift from reputation to relevancy, driven by social media technologies, profoundly changes how students may select a university going forward.
2. Mostly likely those universities who have enjoyed (or over-relied upon) a strong society reputation that may not be justified by current alumni outcomes could be most disturbed by this shift.
3. However, younger, lesser known universities who provide a solid education to their students and do generate positive student experiences and consistently positive alumni outcomes could see dramatic growth in their student populations due to this industry shift from reputation to relevancy.