The Great Upheaval

This clearly written book will be of interest to a broad spectrum of readers, including educators, policymakers, nonprofit professionals, students, and families. Levine and Van Pelt focus not only on colleges and universities but also on the challenges and opportunities of the larger postsecondary world, as they explore the dramatically different future of higher education and proposed actions to shape it.

A crisp, cogent case for the future of higher education in America. Levine and Van Pelt argue that technological change is empowering consumers in new ways and offers innovative ideas about how higher ed can address these changes. Bravo to the authors for being clear-eyed instead of overwrought, suggesting a positive way forward for a critically important institution.

With tectonic shifts underway in higher education, The Great Upheaval could not be more timely. Levine and Van Pelt smartly outline the challenges facing the industry and suggest ways for institutions, policy makers, and funders to respond. A well-researched, well-written, and measured analysis fueled by a burning urgency to see higher education reclaim its central role in the American promise of opportunity and social mobility for all.

An easy read on a complex topic. Levine and Van Pelt reject the forced choices for higher education of 'Stay the course!' or 'The sky is falling!' They claim higher education is undergoing significant transformation and argue the well-being of the nation is tied to the health of higher education. We had better get it right.

Levine and Van Pelt provoke us to reimagine higher education as a dynamic learning-driven enterprise capable of harnessing the nation's talent to achieve far better and more equitable outcomes for the generations ahead. They make the compelling case that sustainable positive transformation must leverage the best lessons learned from the intersecting forces of the status quo and whole-scale disruption.

At a crucial moment for American higher education, this erudite, clear, and witty book asks and answers the Big Question—where do things go from here? It employs a historical framework to predict changes that are big, digital, structural, and good for students. Leaders of the system of today—take this to heart now!

Levine and Van Pelt make the compelling case that higher education must urgently shift its focus to prepare learners and workers for an increasingly fractured world—one where subjects and disciplines are less important than enhancing our human traits and capabilities and contributing to our shared social, democratic, and economic well-being.

With powerful insight and unprecedented command over their subject matter, Levine and Van Pelt look to higher education's past and present to identify trend lines shaping its futures, helpfully drawing in lessons from industries disrupted by technology: music, film, newspapers. Past is not prologue—institution- and policy-level choices matter here—and education's futures look very different from the present. Woe be to those who sit by passively waiting for it to play out.