Category Archives: trends

One forecast for higher ed in the 2020s

Posted on January 30, 2020 by Bryan Alexander

It’s the year 2020 and the appearance of a new decade has many people looking ahead to see what might come up. One example comes from Inside Higher Ed.  John Kroger* offers ten predictions, and it’s a useful set to … Continue reading →

Posted in future of education, trends | 3 Comments

One useful datapoint on how Americans think about higher ed availability and affordability

Posted on January 8, 2020 by Bryan Alexander

Gallup published another poll about how Americans view higher ed.  It’s not a big poll, but offers several key points that anyone interested in academia and the US should consider. First, what do we make of higher ed accessibility?  How … Continue reading →

Posted in trends | 1 Comment

Decades late, most American states start trying to attempt to start to get around to trying to spend a little more money on higher ed

Posted on January 6, 2020 by Bryan Alexander

Some important new data just appeared about higher ed financing. tl;dr version: there’s good news and bad news. The good news is: nearly all American states spent more on public higher ed last year than they did the year before. … Continue reading →

Posted in economics, trends | 3 Comments

American higher education enrollment declines again, continuing a nearly decade-long trend

Posted on December 17, 2019 by Bryan Alexander

The number of students enrolled in American higher education declined again, according to National Student Clearinghouse data.  When I say “again” that refers to the fact that total enrollment has dropped for eight years, semester by semester.  (I’ve been tracking … Continue reading →

Posted in enrollment, trends | 2 Comments

How important is higher ed to Americans?

Posted on December 16, 2019 by Bryan Alexander

What do Americans think about higher education? buy doxycycline online buy doxycycline no prescription generic   According to a new Gallup poll we value it a bit less than we recently did. For anyone involved in or thinking about higher … Continue reading →

Posted in higher education, horizon scanning, trends | 4 Comments

American religious affiliation keeps changing: less Christianity, more “nones”

Posted on December 10, 2019 by Bryan Alexander

One of the big social-cultural trends I’ve been tracking is the changing nature of American religious belief. Specifically, I’ve been watching for signs of a long-promised secularization, as we’ve seen in many other developed nations. And there are now some … Continue reading →

Posted in trends | 1 Comment

How far will digital video go?

Posted on August 15, 2019 by Bryan Alexander

In 2019 the growth of digital video looks like one enormous and steady trend.  We see video appear wherever we can wrangle a screen, from smartphones to large screen tvs to the backs of passenger airplane seats and the fronts … Continue reading →

Posted in technology, trends, videoconferencing | 5 Comments

50 years after Apollo 11: what will we do in space for the next 50 years?

Posted on July 20, 2019 by Bryan Alexander

This week is the 50th anniversary of the first human landing on the moon.  My son and I visited Washington, DC’s National Mall to see some of the commemorations. A brilliant team projected a video of the entire Saturn V … Continue reading →

Posted in technology, trends | 4 Comments

Living in the 21st century: drones versus autonomous cars

Posted on July 10, 2019 by Bryan Alexander

Sometimes the 21st century actually sounds like the 21st century of futurism and science fiction.  Sometimes it appears that way through a certain story or the development of a given trend. And sometimes trends coincide, then produce something new. Case … Continue reading →

Posted in technology, trends | 1 Comment

An illustrative story about public higher education funding

Posted on June 25, 2019 by Bryan Alexander

When people consider the decline of state support for public higher education, it’s commonplace to hear calls to reverse that trend.  What’s rare is to hear people describing plans for how such a fine reversal could occur. I suspect it’s … Continue reading →

Posted in trends | 34 Comments