How For-Profit Education is Like the iPod

In a recent Huffington Post blog, Michael Horn came out in defense of for-profit education.  "Defense" is the appropriate word in light of how the industry has recently come under siege, most prominently in the form of the PBS Frontline documentary, College Inc.

His case for the for-profits is that they:

• produced graduates 3-4X faster than public and non-profit universities over last decade
• disproportionately (and more effectively) serve a hard-to-serve student population
• have driven innovation in online learning, student services and career services
• invested 2-3X more in learning technologies per student than other universities

Disruptive Innovation

Using the economic context of "disruptive innovation," he notes that the onset of for-profit schools is like any other sector-transforming innovation that offers "convenience, accessibility, simplicity or affordability."  Historically, products that are disruptive innovations start on the fringes, then gradually move to the mainstream as they improve.

While Horn draws a historical parallel to Japan's initial exports to America in the 1950s and 1960s, a more contemporary comparison is available: the iPod.

When the iPod first came out in the early aughts, it was quite obscure, and not many portable-music enthusiasts were ready to spring $300 to replace their portable CD player.  After repeated, memorable marketing campaigns began to take hold, the iPod was ubiquitous in popular culture by 2004: it was the default mp3 player (and by and large still is).  Along with iTunes, it transformed the way music and other media are consumed. The convenience of having thousands of songs at your fingertips in a device smaller than any Walkman won the day. For the last several years iPods have been relatively cheaper, and as the technology evolved, ever-more storage capacity and multi-functionality were available. Its success alone gave birth to the iPhone (pioneer of touch-screen smartphones) and, more indirectly, the iPad.

2010 is 2004?

One can envision the same scenario unfolding with for-profit education.  As the U.S. Education Department noted in its new report, “The Condition of Education 2010,” for-profit education is on the rise.  Rapidly moving from the fringe, the number of for-profit colleges is increasing, as well as the industry’s overall proportion of students.  The year 2010 could very well be to education what 2004 was to the music industry.

Back to the Horn piece: it ends with the author urging the Obama administration to include for-profit education alongside non-profit and public universities in the general push to improve access, quality and value.

If enough civic leaders, education administrators and ordinary people feel as strongly as Michael Horn does, then chances are even better 2010 could be 2004.