Dive Brief:

• Coursera President and Co-Founder Daphne Koller says that the college diploma of 15 years ago doesn’t provide the necessary skills for a job in the 21st century.

• According to her podcast interview with Recode, Koller says that expanding educational access with coursework designed for skill-building in key industries is the way to increase interest in education and career preparation.

• Koller says that artificial intelligence and virtual reality components of learning will replace traditional classroom lectures.

Dive Insight:

Technology will be the way forward for higher education, as more campuses of varying missions try to figure out how to boost their enrollment, increase diversity and build brands in the new era of higher education.

As millennials come of age for enrolling in college, their selection processes will be heavily focused on schools that can deliver a memorable living and learning experience as much as they can ensure employment after college.

But these realities clash with the ways in which government and industry are viewing higher education. With more focus on community college and industrial needs, four-year universities will have to determine if upgrading the learning experience is worthwhile across all majors and disciplines, or just those that come with increased federal funding for research and development.

Additionally, bootcamps are rising in value to college students and working professionals seeking to change careers. This also will be a major consideration as to where resources, marketing and recruitment budgets are best spent in reaching the masses about which campuses are a better investment for cost and individual choice in careers.