The Unbundling Trend Gathers Steam

We began talking about the future of "unbundling", or the possibility of students, at least in high school, piecing together their degree by taking courses at multiple institutions, with some possibly public and others private. While not exactly a phenomenon yet, we see all of the necessary factors converging to make this option viable and even desirable.So it is with interest that we read Goldie Blumenstyke's Chronicle of Higher Education (May 25, 2016) interview with Randy Bass from Georgetown University, where he specifically talks about higher education's unbundled future.

"I think what all so-called legacy institutions need to grapple with is to think about what I’ve been calling rebundling. I’ve been doing some writing and thinking about this, some co-writing with others, with Bret Eynon from LaGuardia Community College. He and I have been writing about rebundling. Traditional institutions, even with traditional four-year degrees, often have a great deal of disconnection between the curriculum and the co-curriculum, or between student affairs and academic affairs, or between advisement and placement. I think what we need to do is find what is the right remix going forward, and it’ll take us many, many years to work this through. Between the affordances of unbundling that the Internet now gives us, and the ability to connect new kinds of pathways, to connect different services, connect disparate parts of the student’s experience, in ways to create a more integrated experience for students."

This is how a movement gets started - a few disparate voices eventually become a cacophony.