When I meet with young people and hopeful entrepreneurs, their imaginative projects often remind me that the internet has changed everything — but it hasn't reduced the time it takes to earn an undergraduate degree.
We can access almost limitless information from virtually any urban location through smartphones and tablet computers, yet the standard, three or four-year course of study remains the rule at most traditional colleges. Clearly, some learning no longer has to take place on campus, since students can learn almost anywhere.
I famously dropped out of high school at 16, so I am not particularly qualified to comment on this subject. But as a businessman, I am interested in the inefficiencies of educational systems, as these have not changed despite advances in technology.
From a practical perspective, a student writing a paper no longer has to walk to the library, then spend hours digging through reference books, taking copious notes in longhand that must be deciphered and transcribed into essay form, then typed up.
Today, many students do not need to go to the library at all, opting instead to access information through a free Wi-Fi connection at the nearest coffee shop. Tracking down important facts can take minutes, whereas researching a paper on almost any topic used to take at least half a day.
Why hasn't there been more change in higher education? Because universities are tradition-bound, and so is our thinking.
A university education has traditionally been obtained by a student living on a campus, and continuing this practice reassures parents and students that they are getting their money's worth, just like people visiting lawyer's offices may be reassured by seeing walls lined with leather-bound law books. (I am sure few lawyers open those books anymore, accessing searchable databases instead.)
With governments around the world making cutbacks to education, the costs incurred by young students are increasing, with many choosing to take loans. According to the US Department of Education, it takes students at public institutions 55 months to earn a bachelor's degree on average. Though this may be idyllic for students who are not in a hurry, for others it is wasteful, inefficient and expensive.
In many fields the duration of university undergraduate degree courses could be shortened by a year or more. This would enable skilled young people to move into the workplace more quickly and, in countries where not much financial assistance is available, with far less student-loan debt, which can limit students' options after graduation.
Over the years Virgin has done well in markets where incumbents have become lazy and stuck in a rut. They do business in a particular way for no other reason than "that's the way we've always done it." Though Virgin is not likely to get into the higher education business (at least, not right now) this certainly strikes me as a sector where a serious overhaul is overdue.
In the airline business, an important key performance indicator is the average number of hours your aircraft spend in the air per day. Airplanes are expensive: when they're sitting on the ground you still have to pay the mortgage, even though they aren't contributing to the bottom line. You're doing a pretty good job if you keep your planes flying for at least 12 hours per day, assuming that they are filled with passengers paying the right mix of airfares.
The same calculations apply to fixed overhead costs for almost any business. Could you justify the rent on your office building if your employees used it for only two and a half days a week? Of course not, but that is about the equivalent annual use of most university campuses. Like an airline working to improve aircraft utilisation, it's largely a matter of overcoming scheduling and manpower challenges.
In the United States, students typically attend about 100 weeks of schooling over three to four years. Now that long-distance learning is possible and some assignments can be done more quickly, depending on the course of study and students' preferences, this could be reduced to 80 weeks over two to three years.
Competitive
This would still leave time for a four-month summer break and summer jobs. College and universities, in the meantime, could use their facilities to train other students.
The commercial world has sped up and become a lot more competitive in the last decade; it's time for academia to do the same. No matter how great your qualifications are, if somebody else in your field graduates a year before you do, they will have a jump on you in the job market. So cast tradition aside — get ahead!
