My vision for the future of collegiate schooling is a more decentralized learning concept, through which an individual can obtain an accredited education despite barriers of distance, finances, or disability. At the same time, the total learning concept involves not only what the student receives, but what the students provide each other and provide to the ongoing cause of research and knowledge. To both of those ends, I envision a system that continues to encourage "face-time," but is more flexible in terms of on-campus time and makes greater and more effective use of technology. Corporate America could also be a bit more communicative with universities and students (future workers!) about exactly what they desire in a degree-holding applicant, such as not asking for certified engineers if what they really want is a good problem-solver with a positive attitude.
The time students spend physically on campus could be parceled out in various formats, from a full year that is no longer based upon obsolete farming constraints to real-time teleconferencing and cooperative knowledge systems. For example, a novel approach to accomplishing human interaction with a minimum of both travel and city-sprawl could be to rotate the time (2-4 weeks per college?) that students are asked to be physically present for the learning experience; who says that a school year has to begin and end at a certain time, as long as participation and interaction can be maintained? Other possibilities could include a weekend school, a ROTC-like intermittent schedule, or slowly accumulating a degree or certificate over many lunch and/or evening hours. Intensive one-year programs (like some nursing and veterinary schools) could accommodate an individual who can take a year long sabbatical from work or teaching, but would have trouble attending on an ongoing basis.
Myriad technical ideas and solutions spring to mind, and are already in use in places (some even on the UIUC campus). Some examples include UIUC's Library & Information Science's long-distance learning program, UIUC's Computer Uses in Education class on web-based teaching, LIS's "Fridays Only Scheduling Option" teleconferencing, multimedia, and others. To take it a step further, I envision portions of the World Wide Web (WWW or "web") as a cohesive -although alternative- learning environment. Properly organized and staffed with experts, the web could be the largest reference source ever imagined, making the complete Oxford English Dictionary or the Encyclopedia Britannica look like pebbles on the beach of knowledge. The web may never be as solidly reliable and static as the revered tomes of old, but the trade-off is an up-to-the-minute, bleeding-edge version of information that may herald a new era. The trick is that we don't yet know how to organize it, how to get a handle on it in all of its changing wonder; THAT is where the challenge lies.
Even more paradigm-breaking could be the idea of a school that rotates between campuses, or traveling instructors instead of students. It may sound new, but any corporate trainers who read this are probably saying "of course!" - they've been doing it for years. Speaking of the business sector, closer partnering with corporate America could have other benefits, as well. (After we accept the caveat that we have to be careful with such arrangements, and not let our higher institutions become big commercials for Microsoft or GE.) If schools and professional employers communicated better, perhaps a greater percentage of alumni would get jobs, be more employable, and be more effective and happy in their jobs. Such a relationship could heartily benefit all three parties, providing students, employers, and the schools themselves with advantages. Students would gain direction, more useful skills, and be relieved of some portion of the unavoidable job-hunt stress. Employers get the luxury of considering a graduating student "qualified," rather than waiting for a smaller firm to give them a couple of years of "real-world" experience. Colleges and universities glean reputation, as more of their prodigies immediately get snapped up, and perhaps even financial considerations. After all, corporations might be willing to subsidize tuition in exchange for all these gains.
On other fronts, I think the idea of discrete "students" and "teachers" may fall somewhat by the wayside in adult (or maybe all!) learning. Hopefully we can learn to value everyone for their skills, experience, and insights...and the idea of teacher and student will be more based upon situation and subject than be a permanent mantle worn only by a few.
As grandiose as some of it may sound, all of that is more like 2005 or 2010, in my opinion. In 2020, the idea of a university at a single physical location might seem laughable to us, or at the very least antiquated. In 2020, when you want to know most "normal" and scientific/mathematical things, you turn to your buddy the computer appliance (which may be integral to your living quarters, or may have a physical representation for its "comfort" value), and ask hir - s/he'll take you to the right information in moments!