Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education

Futurists are in high demand. They have a set of skills and a basis for exploring patterns, trends and signals, which suggest scenarios for emerging futures. Bryan Alexander is a respected futurist and skilled practitioner. This book, published in January 2020 and written before the pandemic, is timely in that it explores some of the precarity about higher education already clear and now exacerbated by the pandemic. He explores these scenarios – peak education, health care nation, open education triumph, augmented (AR/VR) campus, retro campus and “Siri, tutor me” as all having elements of credibility and all raising significant issues. Well written, focused and insightful, the book deservedly won the 2020 Most Significant Futures Work award from the Association of Professional Futurists. Policy-makers, administrators and concerned colleagues will all find value in the insights, which fill each chapter.