What's Harvard's future?

In the New Republic Harvard Law Professor William J. Stuntz writes:

Fifty years ago, General Motors was on top of the world--and knew it. GM dominated the American automobile market, and the American market dominated the world. Every year, another line of Chevrolets and Buicks rolled out, pretty much the same as the last, save for the shape of the tailfins. Millions bought them. Wages rose and benefits increased. If costs were higher, customers seemed happy to pay. What could possibly go wrong?

Stuntz says plenty can and will go wrong at Harvard and at many other American universities. He explains why before ending with:

When one sees a large competitive opportunity, it's usually a good bet that someone else has seen it already.

Universities in other parts of the world now enjoy an enormous opportunity. And the competitive position of American schools is worse than GM's in the 1950s. Then, Germany and Japan were still prostrate; no one could imagine that within a generation their economies would seem poised to overtake America's.

Now, it's easy to imagine that a generation hence, Chinese or Indian universities will dominate the world, or perhaps that some intellectual entrepreneur will bring Oxford or Cambridge back to the top of the heap.

Or--this is the scenario to root for--maybe Bill Gates will use a few of his billions to create a new university from scratch, one that does not follow the old rules, and a new style of education will take the market by storm. The only thing that seems certain is that the world of higher education will look very different than it does now.

For Harvard and for the high-end universities with which it allegedly competes, that world will look a lot worse than this one.

I feel a little like an aging French nobleman in, say, 1780. Life is good. One day soon, it won't be. But who cares? I've got mine.

I'm going to give Stuntz a second read tonight. I'll post again tomorrow on his article.

Meanwhile I hope you give it a look. (Registration is required but it's simple and free.)