Out here in suburban Kansas, enrollment at the local community college has been increasing: Johnson County Community College (a fantastic institution, by the way) is experiencing its highest totals ever for a spring semester. The most popular fields of study? Health and entrepreneurship.
That, in and of itself, is unsurprising: higher education often sees a spike in times of recession. Yet in a larger sense, JCCC and other similar institutions around the country may augur a broader shift in the higher education landscape. At least, I hope they do. Enrollment at JCCC is now around 20,000, comparable to some of the country's best state universities--include continuing education, and the number rises. The school expects to benefit, too, from the Johnson County Education and Research Triangle.
In the early decades of the twentieth century, the "high school movement" transformed the relationship between the citizenry, the education system, and the emerging industrial economy. Undoubtedly, a similar transformation is taking place today--community colleges like JCCC, the increasing use of technology in education, completely new ways of teaching, etc etc.
The nature of these transformations is such that, while the federal government will play an unavoidably large role (just given its size and sway in education these days), we won't even be able to coherently outline the future of education until it's already upon us. The only things we can say for sure is that it will be a far more structurally diverse system than today, and it will be much more substantive than simple calls for more money.
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