The Internet will mean the death of the campus university

In his thoughtful article ‘Electronics and the dim future of university’ (1995), Eli Noam argued that:
While new communications technologies are likely to strengthen research, they will also weaken the traditional major institutions of learning, the universities. Instead of prospering with the new tools, many of the traditional functions of universities will be superseded, their financial base eroded, their technology replaced and their role in intellectual inquiry reduced. (Noam, 1995:247)

He outlines three main functions of universities: the creation of knowledge (research); the storage of knowledge (libraries); and the transmission of knowledge (teaching). He argues that the new communication technologies alter the economics of each of these functions, thereby undermining the role of the university. For instance, teaching will be undermined because, for the reasons mentioned above, online providers can offer cheaper alternatives. Noam claims that:

It is hard to imagine that the present low-tech lecture system will survive… If alternative instructional technologies and credentialing systems can be devised, there will be a migration away from classic campus based higher education. The tools for alternatives could be video servers with stored lectures by outstanding scholars, electronic access to interactive reading materials and study exercises, electronic interactivity with faculty and teaching assistants, hypertext books and new forms of experiencing knowledge, video-and computer-conferencing, and language translation programs. While it is true that the advantages of electronic forms of instruction have sometimes been absurdly exaggerated, the point is not that they are superior to face-to-face teaching (though the latter is often romanticized), but that they can be provided at dramatically lower cost. (Noam, 1995:248)


This does suggest an underlying model of education merely as information transfer, so again the idea that video lectures will make the face to face version redundant is proposed. However, Noam is arguing that it is not whether we think that this is a good form of education or not that is significant, but rather that it can be a much cheaper form which might be the deciding factor. There might be some truth in this,but students of such courses might soon find them unfulfilling.

The notion that the Net represents an infinite lecture hall, with no additional costs for additional students, is a mistaken one. I will discuss issues of scale in a later chapter, but in order to provide a meaningful educational experience, and one that is liable to be repeated by students, the provider needs to give guidance and support. So Noam argues that ‘a curriculum, once created, could be offered electronically not just to hundreds of students nearby but to tens of thousands around the world’ (Noam, 1995:248). While it is possible to offer such a course, if it is to be a meaningful education experience it will require a great deal of academic support, which many of the cheaper alternatives would not be able to supply.

What underlies much of Noam’s analysis is the physical aspect of universities. Much of their functionality is bundled with this physical realization. So universities were renowned for having a good library, or excellent laboratory facilities, or a pleasant campus—all physical attributes. As Noam points out, the very reason universities came into existence was because of this bundling of knowledge and its physical embodiment. When the early libraries stored knowledge in the form of books, the cost of reproducing books was high, so it
made financial sense for those people with an interest in a topic to congregate around these libraries. From this gathering of knowledgeable people universities grew, as others came to be taught by them.

Evans and Wurster (2000) argue that physical objects and information have different sets of economics. They have been forced to follow the same economic model, however, because they have been bound together physically. For example, in a supermarket the information about a product is in the product itself. If I want to look through the range of cereals offered I physically walk the aisle looking at the products themselves. The Internet allows these two aspects to become unbundled. I can browse through a vast collection of books at Amazon, while the actual books can be stored in an out-of-town warehouse.

In educational terms this can be seen as the campus versus distance education debate. Distance education has been implemented successfully before the advent of the Net, but it is with the Net that many universities and colleges have entered the distance education market. There has been a dramatic rise in the number of distance education courses and students over the past few years: for example from 1995 to 1998 there was an estimated 72 per cent increase in distance education programs in the US (Phipps and Merisotis, 2000). As with establishing private universities, the Net lowers the cost of entrance to this market. Delivering distance education used to require specially printed teaching materials, audio/visual components and a face to face network for support. These are costly to develop unless an institution is making a large-scale venture into distance education. The Net allows distance courses to be developed quickly and often on a small scale.

This ultimately leads to the question, ‘If all of the functionality of a university can be delivered at a distance, then is there the need for the expensive campus?’ In Evans and Wurster’s terms, if the separate information and physical economics are uncoupled, then they are free to follow their own paths. The ‘university’ no longer needs to have a large campus in the middle of a city. Instead it can have an administrative centre in a less expensive area without the need for halls of residence, lecture halls, libraries and so on.

Will all campus universities disappear, then? This depends on a wider social movement. In an interview published in Forbes, 27 February 1995, George Gilder predicted that information technologies would lead to the ‘death of cities’. His reasoning is much the same as I have outlined above—cities developed out of
economic necessity. Industry needed to be near a resource, such as a port, and then the people who worked in or offered services related to that industry needed to be in its close proximity. Now much of the work that people need to do in a knowledge economy can be done at a distance using the Net. There is less and less reason to be located physically near your employer (or even to have one single employer at all). Thus people will be free to live where they choose.

The reason I think this does not necessarily lead to the death of cities is that many people choose to live in them. Their nature might change, but cities have a social inertia, which is its own justification. The same can be said of the campus university. There is, after all, more to a university education than just the degree.

A university education is a social experience, often a pivotal one for students. As the former Open University Vice-Chancellor, Sir John Daniel (2000), commented,‘I often argue that university campuses will always be in demand because they create a protected environment where young people can come to terms with life, love, liquor and learning—while sparing the rest of the community the sight of these often unsightly processes’.

There is a lot of truth in this: most students will name the social aspect of university life as one of the most significant elements of their overall experience. However, if this is the only advantage large campus universities offer, then it might not be sufficient for the additional costs they entail. There are other ways of having a good time, after all: for instance, a year travelling the world might fulfil a similar function.
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MBA On Government And University Prespective

The factors which brought about this change are somewhat interrelated. They include government interest in management education, growing employer interest, concern for more relevant and practically oriented programmes, a massive increase in the number of ‘MBA’ courses being offered, particularly via distance learning or other parttime modes, and a change in the type of manager choosing to study. The organisational context has also changed significantly. This section is written from a UK perspective, but broadly similar factors have operated, albeit on slightly different timescales, elsewhere in Europe and indeed around the globe.

Government influence
To the extent that they fund education, governments are significant stakeholders in the process. During the 1980s the UK government, concerned with industry’s apparent competitive weakness, started to wonder if the solution lay in better management training, and commissioned several reports on this. It emerged that management training was seen by employers as an overhead, rather than an investment. Of the 90 000 or so who entered managerial roles each year, most had no prior formal management education, and subsequently received on average only one day of training per year. The USA had only four times the population of the UK, but produced forty times as many management degrees and diplomas.

Some of the suggested reasons for this disparity were employer confusion over available qualifications, and worries that courses were over-academic and nonvocational. One response to this was the development of a framework of management competences, and qualifications based upon these. While these are successful at lower levels they have not supplanted the more academic and knowledge-based programmes available at Master’s level – though application of knowledge is strongly emphasised in many such programmes. The development of critical and analytical skills is generally agreed to be crucial for senior managers.

Indeed, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) completed a benchmarking exercise for Master’s awards in business and management which lays down the expected standards for an award, and the attributes and capabilities expected of possessors of this award. The full set of standards can be accessed at:
http://www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/benchmark/masters/mba (accessed 13/01/2007). In summary, they outline the purpose of all such Master’s programmes as:

• the advanced study of organisations, their management and the changing external context in which they operate;
• preparation for and/or development of a career in business and management by developing skills at a professional or equivalent level, or as preparation for research or further study in the area;
• development of the ability to apply knowledge and understanding of business and management to complex issues, systematically and creatively, to improve business and management practice;
• enhancement of lifelong learning skills and personal development so as to be able to work with self-direction and originality and to contribute to business and society at large.

The university perspective

By the 1980s, concerns were surfacing in the USA about the MBA syllabus. There were complaints from employers that the focus on ‘hard’ quantitative and analytical skills neglected other areas crucial to success – interpersonal skills, for example, or creativity.

The Harvard Business Review itself addressed this issue (see Lataif, 1992). One view expressed therein, by a leading management writer, Professor Mintzberg, went so far as to suggest that business schools such as Harvard were seriously damaging US business. He claimed that the process of case study analysis fostered a willingness to pronounce on complex issues from a basis of dangerous ignorance! Thus, the method favours the ambitious, glib and quick-witted, rather than those committed to the good of their organisation. (More recent discussion of topics, such as ‘emotional intelligence’, leadership, ‘social capital’, the importance of teamworking in organisational structures, and recognition of the complex and ‘wicked’ nature of organisational problems, has continued to reinforce such doubts about a glibly rational approach.)

By 1990, many UK universities were coming under considerable financial pressure, and saw management courses, for which premium prices could be charged, as an important new source of income. There was therefore a big expansion in provision: many institutions with little track record in management started to offer a range of management courses, up to Master’s level, often ‘retraining’ redundant staff in other disciplines to teach on these. During the 1990s this extended to quasi-franchise arrangements, with colleges of further education offering courses under the auspices of (usually new) universities in the region. Undergraduate management programmes also expanded massively during this period.

Because of the prestige attached to the MBA qualification, and the high prices that could be charged, almost every college wanted to provide such a qualification, thereby threatening that very prestige. To fill all these new courses, entry qualifications were lowered, sometimes to the point of non-existence. Staff with limited academic background were pulled in as lecturers. It could be argued (indeed, I would argue quite strongly) that the best management teachers are those with current experience of senior management allied to a strong academic background in the subject and experience in, and a love of, developing managers. But many of those sucked into this expansion of provision as part-time lecturers did not fit this pattern.

Another major influence was the move away from full-time courses for managers. In the 1980s, the Open University, the major undergraduate distance learning provider in the UK, realised that many managers could not afford the luxury of full-time study and experimented with adapting their well-tried undergraduate methods to postgraduate management study. Because distance learning students are working while studying, they can instantly apply what they are learning to real life. This approach proved so effective for managers that distance management learning, and the emphasis on ‘improved management practice’ and transferable skills that it allows, have become the most widespread form of formal management education.

Such courses normally equate to little more than a year of full-time study. They take students with no formal management education, and cover the full range of subjects ‘management’ embraces. Considerable variation in quality of provision still exists: you can still find fairly undemanding (and correspondingly fairly unrewarding)

programmes, and need to choose very carefully in order to be sure that the course is well taught, sufficiently challenging, and well regarded by employers.

Because the marketplace for MBAs is now highly competitive, many universities have expanded into the provision of specialist degrees in management-related subjects. Thus, you can find, for example, an MSc in Human Resource Management or International Finance or Marketing or Development Management. Usually much of the teaching is shared with the generic MBA programme, but the coverage of the area of specialism will be greater, and the breadth less. This allows universities to expand their range of ‘products’, and staff to gain the satisfaction of teaching their favourite subjects in greater depth than an MBA allows.
The current situation can be summarised as:

• A highly competitive marketplace, which has forced universities to become more customer focused.
• Heavy emphasis on part-time provision, which allows managers, typically in their early 30s, to bring considerable experience to their studies: study can be designed to build on this experience, rather than relying exclusively on case studies, and can focus on application. This is consistent with government (and employer) emphasis on the importance of transferable skills.
• Provision of a range of programmes from generalist MBAs to a variety of more specialist Master’s programmes, which usually give the same basic understanding of the management context, but will then have a narrower focus on a specialist area.

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