Responding to the Spotify-ization of Education

With Spotify and similar music streaming platforms, we can group our favorite songs into playlists, curating a custom soundtrack for our lives and changing it as often as we like.

There are clear signs that something similar is at work in higher education. We are seeing a larger trend in the modularization, or unbundling, of higher education. Within this model, students might choose to earn technical certifications, complete skills-based short courses such as coding bootcamps, or take massive open online courses instead of enrolling in traditional degree programs.

At the George Mason University School of Business, we believe that business schools, in collaboration with our stakeholders, can and should be trailblazers in demonstrating the legitimacy of this new model. In the process, we can realize the full potential of modularization across the higher-ed ecosystem.

Our starting point is always the individual learner. Whether their ultimate aspiration is to become an entrepreneur, manage small operations, or climb the corporate ladder, they will need knowledge of certain disciplines such as accounting, finance, and marketing to get there.

Integrating core business skills into modular, stackable education helps learners of all types achieve their ambitions. Business schools can help learners navigate their options by acting as central hubs within the unbundled university.

Consider, for example, a healthcare management credential combining courses in public health with business-school pedagogy, or a forensic accounting certificate matched with journalism classes to create a concentrated credential in forensic journalism. Once completed, such co-created courses could count as credits toward a master’s degree from the business school, the partnering unit, or in some cases both.

This vision aligns with the needs of business leaders who have had to redirect resources from employee training to other concerns, such as research and development, to keep pace with an increasingly uncertain climate.

Therefore, one of their top priorities is finding talent that can create value from Day One on the job. They want employees who are intimately familiar with their fields, as well as those who already know how to apply their domain knowledge to the core business.

Historically, higher education has followed a loosely Fordist model of mass production, consisting solely of dispensing uniform degrees. As Henry Ford famously stated, “Any customer can have a car painted any color he wants, so long as it’s black.” But as we shift to a business-driven modular education, we will diversify the higher education portfolio to emphasize mass-customization. Under this model, the product is professional talent, and the customers range from aspiring learners to employers looking to hire.

These stakeholders are facing increasingly competitive pressures in their markets. Without compromising academic integrity, universities could position themselves as the entities best equipped to satisfy their mounting demand for highly trained, ready-to-go talent.

Editor’s Note: A longer version of this article was originally published by AACSB Insights.