Students Are Acting Like Consumers. Higher Ed Needs to Catch Up

Jeff Dinski helped start Cold Pizza at ESPN, the morning show that eventually became First Take. On a daily show, ratings are everything. You either produce something people want to watch, or you do not last. He carried that discipline into edtech, and it is the lens through which he looks at higher education: are you really giving students what they need, or are you producing what is convenient for you?

In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton and Jeff Dinski, Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer at Ellucian, the largest edtech company in the world serving roughly half of all U.S. colleges and universities, dig into the structural forces behind higher education's confidence crisis, what Workforce Pell Grants will actually change, and what institutional strategy has to look like from here.

This conversation is especially relevant for presidents and boards who want a clear-eyed, outside-in read on what students are demanding, where the federal policy environment is heading, and which institutions are best positioned to adapt.

Topics Covered:

• Why the confidence crisis has bipartisan roots and why neither political party has done higher education any favors

• Why student pathways are becoming individualized and what that means for program design and delivery

• Real examples of institutions where undergraduates do actual corporate work, not fetch-coffee internships, as part of their degree programs

• What Workforce Pell Grants will fund for the first time and which institutions are best positioned to benefit

• Why the DBA vs. research PhD distinction matters for building workforce-aligned faculty pipelines

• The Silicon Valley master's program model: tenured faculty for foundational content, industry adjuncts for advanced applied coursework

• Why smaller private institutions face the steepest challenges and what community colleges are doing right

• Two strategic tenets every president and board should act on now

Real-World Examples Discussed:

• Programs where freshmen through seniors do real corporate job functions as part of their degree requirements

• A Silicon Valley master's program that deliberately splits teaching between tenured faculty and cutting-edge industry practitioners

• Business schools' long-standing use of practitioners alongside academics as a model the broader curriculum can adopt

• Ellucian's Journey platform, built to help institutions launch and scale non-degree and continuing education programs

Three Key Takeaways for Leadership:

1. Experiment with non-degree courses now. Workforce Pell Grants will fund new program types at scale and institutions with existing capacity will be first to benefit.

2. Find workforce partners you trust. Aligning curriculum with employer needs requires real relationships with real hiring managers, not assumptions about market demand.

3. Create conditions for faculty innovation. The early adopters already exist at most institutions. Find them, support them, and let their demonstrated impact bring others along.

This episode offers a practical, outside-in perspective on the structural choices facing higher education and a concrete framework for how institutions can respond before circumstances force their hand.

Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/higher-education-disruption-workforce-pell-student-as-consumer/

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