How University Education in the 21st Century Tracks High School in the 20th Century and What Comes Next

In 1920, 31% of American teenagers were in school, triple what it had been a generation earlier.
By 2020, 33% of Americans over 25 had a Bachelor's degree or higher.

Machinery took over manual work early last century, freeing (and forcing) us to work more with our brains than our brawn. This century, algorithms - intellectual machinery - will likely take over knowledge work at a similar rate, forcing another change in how we prepare for work. It's certainly possible that college education this century will roughly track high school education last century and by 2050 about 75% of folks over 25 will have a Bachelor's or more. (In Palo Alto today, 83% have a Bachelor's degree. It is conceivable that Silicon Valley is - in this as well - about 30 years ahead of the country. )

The question, then, is what trajectory will take the place of a university education? What will start out this century as capturing just a few percentage of Americans but steadily build to tens of percent by the end of this century?

I'd argue that it will be time spent in an incubator - a place where young people are engaged in public and private sector projects to launch new businesses and agencies, acts of entrepreneurship and social invention - or R&D lab where they can practice invention, coding, genetic engineering, terraforming, etc. (No. Sadly I won't be around to see the data on this.)

Rather than a dissertation or senior thesis that results in a new paper or model to explain data, young people will be sent directly into the world to generate data rather than analyze it. This could be based on a medieval model of the guild.

To enter a guild (whose members might work with metal or make knives or harnesses, or be doctors or money changers) one had to first apprentice, practicing under the guidance of a master. Then he had to visit other areas to learn from experts there, no longer an apprentice but a journeyman. Finally, the journeyman would have to produce his masterwork that would be evaluated by the guild who would then decide whether to honor him with the designation of master.

Perhaps the culmination of work in a lab or incubator will be a patent or viable business or new government service or agency that wins the approval of voters. The point of this would not be to have mastery in creating products or providing services or making an original contribution to research in the field (as we expect of folks who earn a PhD). The point of this will be to point to some new institution or service or product that you've brought into the world.

And this - a new phase of market economics - will in some sense echo Marx's words, "“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." The objective of this new time in incubators and R&D labs not so much to demonstrate an understanding of the world as to demonstrate some ability to change it.