On Tuesday, June 12, the group discussed all of the six policy possibilities in the Interactivity Foundation report “The Future of Higher Education.” The group began by exploring several possible definitions of “higher education” and then wended its way through the report from there.
There was an underlying cynicism among several of the participants as possibilities were raised that posited higher education as a tool for leveling the playing field for all people. It proved impossible to remove capitalism (and its often-demonized child, competition), the umbrella under which the cynicism took cover, from the equation
Several questions in addition to those considered in the report were raised: What is higher education? What should higher education do? How much can individual success be used to measure success of the greater good?