Philadelphia World Future Society Hosts Expert Forum on Future of Higher Education

Springfield, PA -- (SBWire) -- 01/11/2012 --Bill Ringle, nationally-known CEO advisor, business growth strategist, and president of the World Future Society of Greater Philadelphia, will moderate a national expert panel discussion on the future of higher education on Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 1:00pm EST. This event features prominent educators, economists, entrepreneurs, investors, designers, and futurists who are uniquely positioned to weigh in on the trends in this field.

Higher education is under attack from several fronts today. Business leaders want graduates with more relevant skill sets. Parents howl at the rising costs in a stagnant economy. Students resent graduating full of promise only to find themselves moving back home while they job search. Higher education leaders fire back that high schools are doing a poorer job than ever preparing students to do college-level work and that building expensive recreation centers and refurbishing dormitories is a requirement to remain competitive with other campuses.

Meanwhile, private ventures offering online learning with accredited degrees and/or certifications without the campus overhead market more vigorously and online course materials appear with greater depth, polish, sophistication, and followings each week for no charge.

This panel discussion explores solutions and likely scenarios 10 to 30 years out based on informed thinking, powerful trends, thoughtful analysis, and decided bias for what is anticipated to be a probable or preferable future for Higher Education. Ringle will not seek common ground during the discussion, but rather to surface the underlying reasons for forecasts and to clearly illuminate the implications of the business model, demographic, sociological, and technological directions.

The expert guest panelists are: Cathy Curran, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, is a Fulbright Scholar whose research focuses on the Role and Purpose of Higher Education and the Impact of Public Policy on Higher Education, among other topics.

Mark Kantrowitz, a bestselling author and nationally recognized expert on student financial aid and paying for college, is the founder and publisher of FinAid.org and publisher of Fastweb.com, a popular and complete free scholarship matching site. Jack Maguire, PhD, is the CEO of Maguire Associates, a leading research-based consulting firm serving the education industry; he introduced market research to the field of admissions when he became the Dean of Admissions at Boston College in the early 1970s. Greg O'Brien is CEO of The College Bound Network, a leading provider of interactive, recruitment marketing services to higher education. Andrew Schrage is co-owner of Money Crashers Personal Finance, whic h provides essential education across a wide variety of topics and information on how to reduce and avoid student loan debt as the price of education continues to rise in a floundering economy. Art Shostak, PhD, author and Professor Emeritus, Drexel University, is a longtime member of the World Future Society who has been a futurist consultant for Johnson & Johnson, Monsanto, Proctor & Gamble, various levels of Federal, state, and local government, and major labor unions. Kate Tulenko, PhD, is a globally recognized expert in the field of health labor markets and health workforce education; she is a leading thinker on strategies for health professional schools to cost-effectively train larger numbers of qualified, relevant health workers. Mark Valenti, CTS, is President and CEO of The Sextant Group, Inc.; his particular area of expertise is designing cutting-edge learning spaces and learning environments of the future.

"Higher education, not just in the United States, but around the world, seems to have been immune from innovation and significant change in the last 300 years," says Bill Ringle. "In the next 20 years, I forecast that we will see more agile organizations educating a wider range of adults, accepting higher levels of accountability, for a fraction of today's cost of a traditional bricks-and-mortar 4-year degree by leveraging emerging technological advances and global infrastructure. For some today, having a smartphone with a signal that didn't drop so often seems a wishful dream, but imagine a going to sleep and waking up the next morning with new abilities or knowledge from new forms of accelerated learning. What happens when a generation of top students elect NOT to pursue a higher degree at a traditional institution, but take self-paced courses because the quality and access become superior and a tipping point is reached? This panel discussion bring s together top minds from a variety of professional fields, who all want to share their perspectives and supporting examples. The discussion is designed to explore new frontiers, not to make any singular predection."

This teleseminar can be attended from the convenience of your office or home. Visit www.futureshaping.com and look under Upcoming Events for more information.

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