I read this article with some amount of shrugging and head shaking. It describes a future of learning that doesn't treat education as a series of separate products for separate moments, but imagines a "platform" that stays with a learner from K-12 through university through career changes and reskilling, updating itself as their life and career needs change.
For anyone working in professional & continuing education, this isn't a novel idea. What the article imagines is a College of Professional & Continuing Studies. These and similar schools and divisions (PCEs) are the "platforms" designed purposefully to follow a learner from foundational education into professional skill building with credentials tied to real outcomes. Maintaining a relationship with a learner that spans different stages in their life is exactly what PCE units have been doing for decades. Adults come back for a certificate. Professionals stack credentials as they move into new roles. Alumni return for bootcamps because their jobs change underneath them. Military-connected students move in and out of enrollment on crazy timelines. None of this is new for PCE units.
So I'm again left wondering (and increasingly disappointed) why some universities are actively folding their PCE divisions into hack back-office administrative units led by consultants and uninspiring transactional staff who don't understand the population they're serving, stripping away the innovation, flexibility and acumen necessary to meet the modern learner where they are. It's actually embarrassing to watch, particularly at mid-tier universities that brand themselves as "progressive" and "accessible" to all learners. Deconstructing the one unit built to have a decades-long relationship with a learner while your traditional business model collapses around you is a decision with catastrophic results.
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