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Scott Galloway, a Silicon Valley bestselling author andprofessor of marketing at NYU Stern School of Business, hasrecently written a thought-provoking article that discusses thelong-term effects of the pandemic on the US higher-educationsystem. Professor Galloway claims that the abrupt shut down ofcampuses across the country and the move to online teaching haveshown élite universities in the US new opportunities for hugeprofits. MIT, Harvard and Stanford among the others could decide toenter the market of online education, offering online affordabledegrees that would exploit the university brand to expand enrolmentdramatically. Systematic delivery of online teaching requiresspecific skills and huge investments in technologies that theuniversities do not possess, nor can they access easily. Toovercome this potential limitation, universities are consideringpartnering with the largest tech companies like Google, Apple andFacebook to create new ventures – e.g., MIT@Google, iStanford,HarvardxFacebook – which would offer a large variety of degreeprogrammes. As innovative as this plan might sound, apparently itwould attract only a limited number of students. The vast majorityof US university students appear to miss the on-campus experienceand, should no other options be available to them at these éliteuniversities in the next academic years, are more likely to enrollin degree programmes at their local universities. These localuniversities would continue offering offline teaching on campus ora blend of online and offline teaching activities, investing on the“student experience” and highly specialised degree programmes toavoid the competition of high-tech universities.

Questions:

1. Which theoretical lens explains the potential partnershipbetween universities and tech companies?

2. Which alternative options to partnering with tech companiescould universities consider and why?

3. Which factors justify the choice of smaller universities tofocus on “student experience” and highly specialised degreeprogrammes?