Well before COVID-19 and the recent rapid shift to emergency remote teaching, online education had been gaining in popularity in higher education. The number of students enrolling in online courses and degree programs continues to increase, as does faculty interest in teaching online. Many central administrators see the value that online education brings to their campuses as online offerings are able to provide flexibility to their current students and also reach new student populations.
Beyond the Credential Factory: Why Higher Education Must Shift from Management to Flourishing
For decades, higher education leadership has obsessed over “student success” as a purely operational metric. We track retention and graduation rates and postgraduation outcomes with the same linear precision that
Yoshitaka Iwasaki
August 3, 2026
