Selecting a suitable approach to analyze the future of higher education

Abstract

[Abstract]: How are higher education organizations going to cope with the challenges of a society that is continuously changing? Although the education sector needs to adapt to technological and socioeconomic changes, methodologies on which we have relied in the past will not be adequate in the future. In fact, the past represents just one of an infinite number of possible outcomes and the future may involve a completely different framework. As a consequence, we should attempt to identify an appropriate technique for analyzing higher education in the future. This paper aims to identify the advances and new trends that will allow the definition of a new model for higher education. A crucial paradox is also outlined: whether the witnessed never-before-seen democratization in the accessibility to higher education is going to co-exist in the future with a possible scenario that might restrict its access because of increasing competition and concentration of higher education organizations. We posit that the quantum approach to time and change (QATC) is a suitable approach that helps to set out the future scenario where the current educational model will be called into question; it is also a key tool for studying the relationship between higher education and society.