What universities can learn from airlines

Regular flyers will be familiar with global airline alliances like Oneworld, SkyTeam and Star Alliance and with how successful airlines have been in persuading hundreds of millions of customers to join them.

Apart from earning free flights, membership provides many other perks, such as better seating choices and waivers on pesky additional charges like checked in baggage. More importantly, these alliances have created an airline network model that lets you use frequent flier miles earned from your ‘home’ airline on many other carriers.

In higher education, traditional campus-based, degree-granting universities face increasingly stiff competition from specialised online learning enterprises – and even from social networking companies like LinkedIn which, after the acquisition of Lynda.com, is making inroads in this space.

There are also innovative “bootcamp” models emerging in developing countries, such as Andela, a company headquartered in Nigeria which recruits the top 1 per cent of African talent and places them in software developer jobs in leading global technology companies. As older institutions seek to respond to market disruption, they might benefit from taking a closer look at the airline alliances model and embrace a more entrepreneurial approach. In addition, some United States universities such as Georgia Tech, Stanford and Northeastern are starting to develop strategies to respond to the challenge of lifelong learning in this direction. In Mexico, the higher education group Aliat aims to help students find a better purpose to be better equipped for the changing nature of work.

Most graduates feel loyalty to their alma mater, a loyalty that can last a lifetime. Institutions can leverage that original affiliation and affinity while helping their alumni to tap into lifelong learning opportunities in partnership with other traditional and innovative educational providers.

The alma mater is well positioned to assume this role as it enjoys special knowledge of a graduate’s education, core skillsets and career trajectory. Obviously, those considering heading down this road would need to fully respect the student’s privacy.

As people change jobs and careers more than ever and with entire job categories potentially vanishing due to the spread of automation and artificial intelligence, lifelong learning is essential to staying employable.

Graduates have a lot of choices to make as they progress along individual learning paths. For instance, if they did their undergraduate degree at one institution, they may want to consider a different one for graduate studies. Once they have completed a graduate degree, they might prefer to pick from a broader set of learning options for further education, including micro-credentials, nanodegrees or so-called badges – shorter duration learning options providing enhanced flexibility.

As students weigh up multiple offers, the alma mater can stay connected with them throughout this journey while offering and providing guidance on a broad set of alternatives in an expanding ‘educational network’ that also enhances their own brand value.

Reimagining lifelong learning

Instead of viewing the new market entrants, notably the online course deliverers, as competitors, that relationship can be reimagined as a potential partnership. By developing a network with newer players, they can help graduates to upskill in the labour market, this being a strong focus of so many of the online education providers.

They can help to match alumni with an online, campus or blended learning course from within their network that fits the student’s present upskilling needs.

At the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the division of the World Bank Group that invests in the private sectors of emerging markets, we have an active portfolio of about US$1 billion in private education. Jobs-oriented higher education is a top priority for us. Some loyalty-and-rewards-type alliance could be quite relevant in this context.

We are already taking steps to support this broader agenda, notably with the launch last year of the IFC Employability Tool, an advisory service recently launched in Ghana and South Africa to help educational institutions in emerging markets improve their employability practices.

For example, recent research we have done for an upcoming report on digital skills in sub-Saharan Africa reveals a major shortage of these skills in that region’s workforce. We need to think about how to create a system that supports graduates as they embark on their individual lifelong learning journey, a system that attracts new players to the region and nurtures home-grown EdTech models that could partner with universities.

Staying relevant

The jury is still out on who will take advantage of this opportunity. Certainly, established universities are well positioned to capture the space given their strong brand value. However, if they fail to move on it, someone else will be happy to do so.

An excellent way to advance along this road is to partner with a new player. For example, Degreed, the United States-based EdTech company whose platform allows users to learn, develop and measure their skills and which has forged strong partnerships with some major employers, could be very interested in such an arrangement.

Higher education institutions must not let the ground shift from under them but rather move with it – and break new ground. By embracing such partnerships, universities can stay relevant to alumni while tapping into the academic resources of other well-established institutions and innovative EdTech companies. They can create regional and global networks, just like the airline industry has done.

Alejandro Caballero is an industry specialist in the education sector of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the division of the World Bank Group that invests in the private sectors of emerging markets.