My new piece on Western Governors University on forbes.com is now out, and it explores how competency-based education, or CBE, has provided a more flexible and adaptable way for students to complete courses and their degrees. Instead of a fixed time for a course, students can demonstrate mastery of a well-defined set of tasks to move on to the next part of their education. The way that WGU has been built around CBE gives it a competitive advantage and has helped it become the largest university in the US, with over 180,000 students. My piece explores how WGU has reconceptualized how a university works, with a student-centered approach with faculty, tech staff, and administration all locked in on maintaining the “momentum” of students in their learning. My piece includes an interview with WGU Provost Courtney Hills McBeth and describes CBE programs at SNHU, Purdue Global, Northern Arizona University, and East Texas A&M University. The piece is online at Forbes.com at the link below:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanpenprase/2025/01/21/a-deep-dive-into-wgu-and-competency-based-education/

I have been thinking about how Michael Porter’s model for the Five Forces of Competitive Strategy, long a centerpiece of business strategy, provides a useful lens for considering the seismic forces bearing down on higher education today.

These forces, which include competitive rivalry, the threat of new entrants, the bargaining power of suppliers, the bargaining power of buyers, and the threat of substitute products or services, apply to universities and colleges as they compete for dwindling supplies of students, face threats from new universities and substitutions in the form of micro-credentials, and face increasing bargaining power from students and parents as they reconsider the value of a college education. This piece is now on Forbes.com – and enumerates how these forces are reshaping our universities and colleges and how they will need to evolve and adapt to survive. Here is a link to the piece:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanpenprase/2024/12/23/the-five-forces-reshaping-higher-education/

I have written a new piece for Forbes.com about the rise of the “mega university,” including enormous online universities like SNHU and WGU and massively scaled universities like ASU and CFU. These giant universities are re-writing the value proposition for higher education in favor of convenience and efficiency – and while they may not reach the same quality of experience as the top traditional universities, they are becoming increasingly popular for their lower costs and greater efficiency. The article explores how these universities and others have grown and some details that help fuel their popularity and growth. It also briefly describes some of the results of ASU’s growth under the leadership of Michael Crow and its role as a “fifth-wave university.” The new post is on Forbes.com at the link below:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanpenprase/2024/12/02/the-mega-universities-disrupting-higher-education/

Mexico’s higher education system is growing to meet the needs of its people, and Mexico’s college-aged population has grown dramatically, with attendees more than doubled from 1.9 million in 2000 to approximately 4 million today. With 120 million inhabitants, Mexico operates over 231,000 schools that serve 21 million students in basic education. Its system of higher education institutions is spread out over 32 states to serve a population that speaks more than 60 languages. In a recent piece for Forbes.com, entitled “Mexico’s Growing Higher Education System,” I describe how Mexico is working to meet the needs of its people for education at all levels, including government initiatives that have created new universities, online programs like MexicoX, and multilingual education programs to meet the needs of students in states like Oaxaca and Chiapas. You can read more about this piece and the contributions that Mexico’s leading universities, such as UNAM and Monterrey Tec, are making to innovate and provide higher education for Mexico and the larger Latin American region. My new piece is available at Forbes.com at the link below:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanpenprase/2024/11/14/mexicos-growing-higher-education-system/

My new piece in Forbes.com explores how AI in India is being developed by the combination of India’s thriving startup and tech sectors and university partnerships. The AI ecosystem in India includes new universities such as the Jio Insitute, founded as a philanthropic effort by Reliance Industries, and the new Universal AI University. The piece also includes quotes from an interview with Shailesh Kumar, the Dean of Jio’s AI and Data Science program. It includes some impressive ways AI is already impacting India’s healthcare, agriculture, and education systems. These impacts will also have larger ramifications for the world as other countries in the Global South adopt similar AI systems for their development. That piece is available at this link:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanpenprase/2024/10/13/the-future-of-ai-and-india/

During the past few weeks, I have been fascinated to study some of the ways in which Europe is lagging in growth, as documented in the influential Draghi Report on European Competitiveness, while simultaneously leading the world in other indicators such as longevity, reduction of carbon footprint, and reducing income inequality.

It was fascinating to talk with some of the leaders of institutions in Spain, which I used as an example of how European countries try to preserve their legacy of culture while moving forward thoughtfully into the future. An interview with Ivan Bofarull, the Chief Innovation Officer of the Spanish Business School Esade, gives a new take on disruption innovation based on synthesis. The piece is available here on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanpenprase/2024/10/01/educating-for-europes-unique-style-of-economic-growth/

The Duke Today magazine had a nice article about our New Global Universities Summit in Washington, DC. The meeting was organized by my co-author Noah Pickus and his team at Duke, and I was able to help with the planning and interviewing of some of the speakers and attendees for a booklet that summarizes some of the lessons learned from founding new universities. The article is entitled “The New Ventures in Higher Education” and was published on July 16, 2024.

In the article, they describe how Noah and I met during our ACE fellowship year in 2012-13. As the article states, “Twelve years ago, Noah Pickus, a Duke ethics professor, and physicist and astronomer Bryan Penprase found themselves discussing the state of higher education at a bar in Chicago. Over hazy IPAs, we discovered a mutual frustration with the ways in which colleges and universities imitate each other in a race for improved college rankings and prestige.”

The article also recounts some of the ways in which the new universities are innovating in Teaching and learning. As the article states, “Bryan Penprase says many of the innovations at new global universities offer new types of curricula and teaching in undergraduate education that can be replicated elsewhere. Here are examples:

• Yale-NUS College, which merges both natural and social sciences and Asian and Western philosophical and political ideas
• a four-year course at Ashesi University in Ghana designed for developing entrepreneurial and ethical leaders for Africa
• a Vietnam studies course at Fulbright University Vietnam that presents both American and Vietnamese views of the war”

Below are a couple of images from the article, showing some our academic leaders during the meeting in Washington D.C. in June.

Left to right: Bryan Penprase, co-author of “The New Global Universities”; Gilda Barabino, president of Olin College of Engineering; and Mabel Miao, co-founder for the Center for Globalization and China

Duke Provost Alec D. Gallimore with Joanne Roberts, president of Yale-NUS College