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In an Atlanta Journal Constitution article last week, Marty Nemko, an education consultant, career counselor, and author, argues that traditional colleges are over-promising and under-performing for a large group of students in the United States. The students he has in mind are those who graduate in the bottom 40% of their classes and then attend traditional 4-year colleges. After 8 ½ years, two-thirds of this group have not yet earned their diplomas.

Nemko argues that dropping out of college devastates self-esteem while generating burdensome debt, all just to land an income and a job the student would have been qualified to earn with a high school diploma. Even when these kids beat the odds to earn their degree, they are more likely to be among the bottom-performing college graduates competing for jobs upon graduation, a recipe for disappointment. Colleges are selling the promise of bigger salaries and fast-trajectory careers, but failing to deliver a better post-high-school career outlook to the bottom 40 percent.

Colleges should do a better job of preparing students to compete in the global economy for high-skill careers by investing less in research, campus beautification, or sports, and more in providing quality teaching and mentorship Nemko suggests. Another alternative -- why not encourage the least academically prepared high school graduates to set their sights more realistically and just avoid college? The service sector is the fastest-growing job segment in the US and there is absolutely no shame in pursuing a trade.

Nemko proposes a solution for colleges: Through government mandates, create standardized and transparent performance data on every accredited institution of higher learning. He cites several examples of the type of data that might colleges might be required to report.  These include:

• Standardized testing. Administer an exam that measures skills important for career success, such as the ability to draft a persuasive memo, analyze a financial report or use online research tools to develop content for a report. A school's results would be public information.
• Retention data. Institutions should reveal the percentage of students returning for a second year, broken out by SAT score, race, and gender.
• Graduation rates. The four-, five-, and six-year graduation rates, broken out by SAT score, race and gender.
• Employment data. Show the percentage of graduates who, within six months of graduation, are in graduate school, unemployed or employed in a job requiring college-level skills, along with salary data.

However, this solution assumes that the primary goal of graduating high school students is to optimize their future financial position. Assuming that's correct, one way students could achieve this goal is to develop a high level of skill through an advanced degree. Another way is to simply avoid the high probability and high cost of failure and avoid college altogether.

Nemko’s recommendation for more data transparency addresses both options. Low-performing colleges would come under public and embarrassing scrutiny…the kind of pressure that might shame them into reforming their own business model so they can show better outcomes. Low-performing high school graduates would have compelling and dissuasive data on their true odds of acquiring an education and achieving their career goals.

Although Nemko makes a classic case for low-end disruptive innovation, his proposed solution would stifle innovation. Mandates would force all accredited institutions into a sustaining competitive battle on exactly the same career-oriented performance dimensions. While a few institutions might change their game, it seems more likely that this approach would simply thin the ranks of traditional colleges and college students in the US.

For example, what might such scrutiny do to disruptive business models like that of the University of Phoenix, which has removed barriers such as access and wealth to make education available conveniently at home to those who otherwise might be nonconsumers? Does it matter that the University of Phoenix's four-year graduation rate is below 10 percent? Not to its students, who happily make the trade off between a time-structured physical classroom curriculum and the opportunity to study at very low cost, on-demand through the Web.

In the US, there are more than 2 million students pursuing occupational curricula at career colleges that specialize in preparing students for careers ranging from culinary arts to automotive technology.  Enrollment has grown by 17 percent in these programs over the last 2 years, in line with the 19 percent growth in jobs requiring two-year degrees.  But these students number far fewer than the 17 million enrolled in four-year colleges estimated by the census in 2006. Why aren’t more of the “bottom 40” who go to college choosing these programs, which demonstrate very compelling graduation rates and career metrics?

The plausible reason is that students have a whole slew of other jobs-to-be-done that have nothing to do with landing a high-paying career:

• Mature as an adult in a relatively controlled environment for a few years before being released into the wild
• Find out what they enjoy doing
• Discover strengths and weaknesses
• Have some fun for a few years before buckling down
• Develop a new skill
• Meet a new and diverse set of people who broaden their network and perspective on the world

We expect that the most innovative and disruptive approaches to preparing the “bottom 40” for the work world will come from outside the traditional university system, and even from outside the education sector. While the traditional four-year institutions are locked in a sustaining battle to compete for the best pool of applicants they can attract, disruptors like University of Phoenix and others can hone their business models on nonconsumers and the lowest-performing students.

Can you imagine Facebook U.? 

A terrific article in today's New York Times provided a case study in how to debase a brand. Ironically, the same institution illustrates how to extend one. The institution is one we know well -- Harvard University. The NYT front-page article focuses on Harvard's Extension School, which offers a wideranging courseload accessible without review by an Admissions Department. Fine enough -- the principle of making Harvard open to the broader community is an excellent one. But the University has taken things a step too far, marketing the courses as the Harvard experience, and even going so far as to offer a BA degree from the Extension School. Sure enough, people are obtaining their BAs, which they list as being from Harvard University, at a cost far less than they would pay at Harvard College, and with no screening by Admissions. Harvard has spent over 350 years building its brand, and now it has proceeded to dull it through this short-sighted move. We have seen other organizations follow a sadly similar course. In attempting to disrupt themselves, or simply to extend their reach into the market, they have pushed their brands too far. From Yves San Laurent to Delta Express, firms have misunderstood how easily brand equity can be muddied. A brand is strong if it links tightly with a customer's job to be done, occupying a very distinct piece of mental real estate. YSL could not stretch to encompass high fashion and cheap sunglasses, just as Delta could not extend from a high-service airline to a truly no-frills operation. This is not to say that the firms shouldn't have attempted these efforts, but doing it in a way so tightly linked to their core brand risked equity built up over decades, and also created tensions about just how far the low-cost or mass market approach could be pushed. Harvard seems to be marching down this path. However, the University shows a better way through its Harvard Business School Publishing. HBSP makes the Business School's famous case studies accessible to all. I even used them to teach salespeople in Zambia about some key business principles. As Clayton Christensen and Scott Anthony have described in Seeing What's Next, this model provides a way for HBSP to become an Intel Inside for educational programs around the world. No one confuses a course elsewhere for the HBS experience, even if it is based on HBS cases. HBSP succeeds in linking Harvard's brand equity to the cases, but not to the student. In a different vein, Calvin Klein has extended its brand to CK -- CK conveys a more off-the-cuff, less elegant message than the core Calvin Klein brand, and the price points are in line with this perception. Firms with powerful brands can disrupt themselves, but they must move with care.

In today's Wall Street Journal, Chris Whittle (registration required) makes a compelling appeal for a disruptive approach to education. Whittle--the CEO of Edison Schools--argues that the United States needs a national-level R&D effort to address the problems of primary and secondary education. Whittle asks:

So where are our national policy makers? Where are the Bell Labs, Xerox Research Parks, Ford Test Tracks, Strategic Defense Initiatives and NASAs of education? Why is America so slow to arrive at the inevitable conclusion that schools are a national security priority -- and that federal funding of R&D investment in them would serve as, shall we say, Homeland Offense?

He compares today's education system to a highly fragmented industry, implying that a degree of consolidation--at least for the purpose of innovation--is required. He says, "our national political leadership must fund a whole new level of educational innovation."

Whittle calls for a new type of educational experience, freed from the resources, processes, and values of the "old design." The way that Whittle describes this new educational structure comforms well to the defnition of a disruptive innovation as "an innovation that cannot be used by customers in mainstream markets." The US education system, which grew in an organic way along with American settlement and economic development, is structurally unable to innovate in needed ways. The mainstream markets--in this case the public schools--simply cannot innovate sufficiently on their own.

The implication of Whittle's piece is that disruptive innovation theory could provide a pathway to educational reform. Those interested in improving America's schools should read The Innovator's Solution along with Whittle's new book.Chris Whittle Op-Ed