Thirty years from now the big university campuses will be relics. Universities won't survive. It's as large a change as when we first got the printed book. Do you realize that the cost of higher education has risen as fast as the cost of health care? And for the middle-class family, college education for their children is as much of a necessity as is medical care-without it the kids have no future. Such totally uncontrollable expenditures, without any visible improvement in either the content or the quality of education, means that the system is rapidly becoming untenable. Higher education is in deep crisis.' Seeing things as they really are, Forbes (March 10, 1997)
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Drucker predicts traditional universities will become obsolete like ancient relics due to unsustainable costs and lack of quality improvement, similar to how the printing press changed knowledge access.
- In plain terms
- Colleges might disappear because they are too expensive and not improving enough.
- What can you take from it?
- Higher education must adapt or face collapse due to cost and quality issues.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What alternatives exist if universities fail?
- How do you measure education quality?
Another view
Historical predictions of institutional collapse often underestimate resilience and adaptation.
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