Scott Galloway, a business professor at New York University, claims that online learning tools will allow elite universities to monopolize the higher education industry. Galloway has made a series of accurate market predictions, including a prediction that Amazon would purchase Whole Foods.
In an interview published by New York Magazine this week, New York University Professor Scott Galloway predicted that elite universities and colleges will monopolize the higher education market. Galloway correctly forecasted that the startup WeWork was overvalued one month before its stock price imploded.
Galloway predicts that universities and colleges will shut down like “department stores” as students gravitate towards online degree programs offered by a handful of powerful institutions. Although some universities may survive on donations from alumni, Galloway predicts that some universities may be forced to partner with big tech companies like Google and Apple to keep their doors open.
It will be like department stores in 2018. Everyone will recognize they’re going out of business, but it will take longer than people think. There will be a lot of zombie universities. Alumni will step in to help. They’ll cut costs to figure out how to stay alive, but they’ll effectively be the walking dead. I don’t think you’re going to see massive shutdowns, but there’s going to be a strain on tier-two colleges.
Galloway claims that students and families are beginning to recognize online education is worth less than the traditional campus experience. However, most universities and colleges have refused to offer partial refunds for the spring semester.
There’s a recognition that education — the value, the price, the product — has fundamentally shifted. The value of education has been substantially degraded. There’s the education certification and then there’s the experience part of college. The experience part of it is down to zero, and the education part has been dramatically reduced. You get a degree that, over time, will be reduced in value as we realize it’s not the same to be a graduate of a liberal-arts college if you never went to campus. You can see already how students and their parents are responding.
Many universities have refused to freeze tuition prices for the upcoming academic year. Galloway claims that universities are in a period of “consensual hallucination” about their tuition prices even though the quality of their offerings has dropped.
At universities, we’re having constant meetings, and we’ve all adopted this narrative of “This is unprecedented, and we’re in this together,” which is Latin for “We’re not lowering our prices, bitches.” Universities are still in a period of consensual hallucination with each saying, “We’re going to maintain these prices for what has become, overnight, a dramatically less compelling product offering.”
Breitbart News reported in March that Purdue University has kept its tuition for Indiana residents under $10,000 per semester for seven years. Purdue President Mitch Daniels originally promised to freeze tuition under $10,000 in 2013.
Although Galloway believes online classes are the future, college students seem not to agree. Breitbart News reported in April that 77 percent of college students said that online learning is less effective than traditional in-person courses.
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