Was this forwarded to you by a friend? Sign up, and get your own copy of the news that matters sent to your inbox every week. Sign up for the On EdTech newsletter. Interested in additional analysis? Upgrade to the On EdTech+ newsletter.
ASU+GSV’s theme this year is Fusion, explicitly framed around turbulent times and the convergence of forces reshaping education. The organizers are not pretending this is a normal year or a simple celebration of innovation. They see the turbulence, and they named it. And yet, based on a few days of sessions and hallway conversations, too much of the conference was programmed around the profitable half of it.
That is the story here. The problem is not that ASU+GSV somehow missed a few important topics. The problem is that the conference puts on display a broader EdTech blind spot about the actual crisis confronting colleges and universities.
The visible conference is the familiar one: AI tools, transformation narratives, packed sponsored sessions, and a steady stream of claims that better technology can unlock the next phase of higher education.
The missing conference is the one that should be happening alongside it: financial sustainability, student loan limits, institutional accountability, accessibility, program viability, and the growing question of whether institutions can continue to operate under mounting external constraints without changing their underlying models.
There is not much being fused, and that second conference is largely absent.
Subscribe to Premium to read the rest.
Become a paying subscriber of Premium to get access to the rest of this post.
Upgrade