What Forward-Thinking Colleges Are Doing Differently
Many colleges feel stuck between two unsatisfying options: preserve traditions that no longer fit, or chase change without clarity about what should remain. As enrollment pressures and financial constraints grow, the deeper challenge is not innovation itself, but whether institutions truly understand what students are hiring them to do.
In this episode of Radical Cooperation, Dr. Michael Horowitz sits down with Michael Horn to examine how higher education’s underlying models shape institutional behavior often more than leaders realize. Drawing on jobs-to-be-done thinking, they explore why incremental fixes rarely deliver resilience, how misalignment between student motivations and institutional design leads to attrition, and why focus and differentiation are essential for helping students choose more intentionally.
Rather than framing the future as a breaking point, this episode offers a grounded perspective on how colleges can evolve thoughtfully, preserving their core while building structures that better serve both students and institutions.
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