🎓 Reinventing Higher Education

On my mind since Jan 2024, added to site Sept 2024, my full-time job since Dec 2024.

For more context on this idea, I am writing an article on my motivations to make this happen, and another on the current higher education crisis. (To be finished soon!)

I have now spoken to over 50 people about this idea: leaders and practitioners in education, pedagogy, psychoemotional development, entrepreneurships (both social and profit driven) and more. Many thanks to all of you who have given me time and insights. Eveyrything I present here has been co-created.

If you could reinvent higher education from the ground up… what would it look like?

I think it would be a “no-university” (actual name to be defined). University because it would hold the same “mental category” as a University (place to go and learn after Highschool), but the “no-” negation coming from doing everything in the way that makes the most sense for students, society and science… Which is not how actual universities do it.

The no-university

Picture a place that looks like this:

• Project-based and experiential learning for the whole program.
• Limited scale, 500 to 1000 students enrolled at most.
• Entry based on Intelligence 🧠 + Perrenque/Grit 🔥
• Diverse student base, from all economic/geographic/cultural backgrounds in the country. Hopefully, at least half come from disadvantaged economic backgrounds.
• Free. Core program costing 0. Zero.
• As high-quality and prestigious as the most recognized Universities in the region.
• In-person learning and in-campus living.
• No fluff. All projects are immediately practical, hence all knowledge is immediately useful.
• Study period somewhere around 2 years, with at least a dozen projects to be solved. Some may stay for longer, some may be ready earlier.
• Connection and interaction with the real world (industry, NGOs, government, communities) since day one.
  1. Real world practitioners help structure projects based on their own real problems.
  2. Students meet and interact with these real-world professionals several times per project, dozens of times over the program, creating a network on the way.
  3. Some projects are based on problems local to a community. Students get time to travel to these communities and work in-situ.
• Soft Power skills and Ethics as an integral part of the program and each project.
• Open-ended projects train people to be problem-solvers. The program trains creators/innovators/solvers/makers. Each person can solve a project from their own skills, interests and passions (but they must solve it!).
• Projects and guidance give these innovators the tools to create:
  1. Design mindset - Understand problems before creating solutions, understand the system where your solution will exist.
  2. Use of technology - Programming, AI and software in general as tools for creation.
  3. Business basics - Money in minus money out should be greater than zero, or whatever you build will die.

End result are powerful problem-solvers, with a diverse array of tools at their disposal, a portfolio of projects, a sensible psychoemotional base and a network on which to thrive. All for a much smaller cost than traditional Higher Learning and a completely differentiated experience.

The entry profile

What do the brightest 500 young minds in the country look like? some of them could be 10/10 students. Others, maybe not so much. Some could be extremely numerical oriented, other maybe more socially minded, others maybe shrewd negotiators. Some of them (many?) come from poverty, others from an affluent lifestyle. Diversity is key.

All of them, without exception, must have Perrenque in droves.

Santiago Garcia coined the term “Diamond Youth” for these young people. I think we can find and hone these young minds.

The methodology

Research shows that the best way to learn is by experience, not by with a teacher talking in front of 40 students. All or most (95% of the program) should then be project-based, with real problems and projects being solved.

Cite papers ⤴️

Project based learning.

Projects are varied.

Projects can be solved by different means. Use example of Agua de Bogotá.

Scale and quality

Limited Scale

Diversity

Quality over Quantity

In-person

Experience is everything.

Not everything is “hard skills”

Sense of belonging matters.

Connected to local community.

Physical center of innovators/makers/creators in the country.

The content

Projects sourced from real-world institutions/companies/communities. Diversity in focus (profit, social impact, practical)

Students are given tools (design thinking, tech skills, contacts, time) with which to solve the problem.

Guides push the student along towards progress, but the path to solution is open for their choosing (and the solution itself is unknown a priori).

Effort is consciously spent towards psychoemotioanl development. Vision quest/mountain survival example. How is self-esteem created?

Connection with the real world

Industry/NGOs/Goverment/Communities helps shape the projects based on their own problems. They have someone go and personally see/counsel students on their progress with some regularity.

Some projects allow students to travel and solve problems in-situ, giving them perspective on society.

Some projects present ethical situations: Benefit X or Y party.

Some projects come from the own student’s problems.

Physical space designed so interaction happens even outside projects. Innovation, design, technology events are held here, designed to maximize interaction between students and established like-minded professionals.

“Anti-conferences”

The experience

Community + Ownership + Freedom + Experience-Building + Travelling + Diversity + Independence + Technology + Innovation + Personal Growth. Extremely differentiated.

The exit profile

Solver/design mindset + Psychoemotional base + tech skills + ethical base + perspective through diversity + strong community + jump-started professional network.

The business model

Imagine we have our 500 students. The running cost for the company per student per year in similar benchmarks, such as Ecole 42 or Nova School of Business is ~2000 USD per student. Say that given the extra requirements (living facilities, inexperience operating) this cost can go as high as 4000 USD per student per year. So, in total 1 to 2 Million USD yearly in running costs.

How can we make this free? Well, get the money from somewhere else! There are several options:

• The most common in other benchmarks is Lifelong/Executive learning. Courses on specific topics (with our project-based methodology and experience) sold at around ~5K per person. At this cost-to-student, you could cover your core program costs AND the executive program costs completely with ~300-600 Executive Education students enrolled. This is my current bet.
• Grants. Many social ventures manage to score grants that supplement their operations, which is not an option in a fully profit-driven organization.
• Donations. If the project takes hold, I believe donations or sponsorships from corporations, NGOs, foundations and wealthy individuals are a possibility.

That’s it. No growth path (Why grow beyond 500-1000 students in the core program)? Instead of focusing on growth, the strategy then is to focus resources on keeping the experience extremely rewarding and the quality of our innovators, thereby maintaining prestige and recognition in society and demand from employers to hire our talent. Reinventing ourselves constantly and quickly is the startegy to staying relevant, not growth.

The Social Impact

1. Youths from disadvantaged economic backgrounds have a chance at proving themselves and thriving.
2. Many paths of life thats wouldn’t have crossed before now converge and interlock. Diversity is part of the “club”.
3. Social connections are created between working professionals and students, paving the way for future ventures.
4. Innovation, problem-solving and creation as work-skills join the market, helping the country and region solve its most pressing issues.
5. If the idea is successful, and we manage to create these amazing people and gather prestige, then this can be a success example for others to create similar institutions in Colombia and the world over, changing education as we know it. This can force/inspire other more traditional institutions to change, this can create a push for more modern methods in daycare, middle-school and high-school, this can create change in legislation.

The endgame

There is no exit strategy. The company is never sold. No one gets filthy rich out of it (other than the country, with all the amazing talent). It becomes a social institution, as the traditional universities that have come before have been.