The Innovative University: Changing the DNA of Higher Education from the Inside Out

clearly or perform competently in analyzing complex, non-technical problems, even though faculties rank critical thinking as the primary goal of a college education.7

In particular, he noted how scholarly activity tends to distance professors from the undergraduate teaching and learning process.

They want to learn when they have time to learn—often after work, when their children are asleep. New entrants to higher education that focus on these potential students are indeed classic disruptors.

A disruptive innovation, by contrast, disrupts the bigger-and-better cycle by bringing to market a product or service that is not as good as the best traditional offerings but is more affordable and easier to use.

At the same time, he argued, the desire to attract and satisfy students as though they are mere customers leads to academic coddling, in the form of easy grades and expensive facilities and entertainments, such as intercollegiate athletic teams.

BYU-Idaho determined to serve only undergraduates, with the goal of providing even ordinary students a first-class education via a focused set of academic offerings.

Harvard succeeded in becoming Harvard in large part because it never tried to become anything else.

Only the costs of a higher education, one can argue, have kept pace with the times.

For example, among BYU-Idaho's most watched statistics is the percentage of students admitted, rather than the percentage denied.