Before we can truly understand students needs now or in the future, we have to know who those students are. Our society has a limited view of who counts as a student, and Lumina and UH Foresight want to better understand how higher education can meet the needs of both traditional and non-traditional students. Below is a quick infographic with some basic facts about who students are in 2014 and definitions of the four types of students the teams are using to frame their research and findings. View the full-page version here.
What are your thoughts? Which profile do you think will have the most impact on student needs in the future?
The University of Houston Foresight program is exploring the future of Student Needs 2025 and Beyond for the Lumina Foundation, a leading higher education foundation with a goal of raising higher educational attainment levels from 40% today to 60% in 2025. We are tasked with providing Lumina a view of how student needs are evolving over the next dozen or so years. Put simply, could changes in student needs alter the equation of what higher education will need to providing by 2025 and beyond?
To map the student needs landscape of the future, the Houston Foresight program has assembled a team of two dozen faculty, alums, and students organized around six teams exploring evolving student needs related to living, learning, working, playing, connecting, and participating. We are using Houston’s Framework Foresight process to produce forecasts of student needs and identify the implications and issues they suggest for higher education.