Dr. Anant Agarwal, CEO of edX, started his talk off with a pop quiz: “How many of today’s jobs do you think will be around in 2030?” After entertaining a few guesses he provided the answer, based on studies looking at trends in automation, technology, artificial intelligence, etc. “Only 13 years from now, 50% of today’s jobs will be lost,” he said.

What does this mean for higher education? How do universities prepare students for career success in such a rapidly changing economy? Agarwal made a compelling case that edX, an open source, nonprofit online learning destination that offers courses from the world’s best universities and institutions, is the solution.

The mission of edX, established five years ago in partnership with Harvard and MIT, is to increase access to high-quality education for learners everywhere. Further, the company studies how people learn and seeks to improve campus learning and research as well as enable distance learning. The platform boasts 11 million users, more than 1300 courses, 120 global partners, and 40 million course enrollments.

“We seek to address the disconnect between educational goals and economic markets,” Agarwal said. “The rigid model we currently have in higher ed needs to adapt to the rapid pace of innovation in our economies, which is transforming entire industries and creating new fields, new jobs, that require skills that didn’t exist 5 to 10 years ago.”

Agarwal also noted that, unlike students of the past, members of Generation Z are “completely comfortable learning online, engaging with peers online.” He pointed to research that has found students who watch a video interspersed with brief tests retain more knowledge. The pedagogy behind the edX platform—active learning (also known as interpolated testing)—takes advantage of this.

Flexibility, Agarwal noted, is a big advantage of the edX educational model. “Why do most master’s degrees take two years? Students have families, jobs—they need an education that works with their obligations and timeframe.” He likewise questioned the admission process, finding it rooted in the limitations of classroom space on campuses. “Online there is no limit to how many students can be trained and the cost of an additional student is basically zero,” he pointed out.

EdX courses are offered 24/7; are taught by “the world’s best professors and industry leaders”; include interactive labs, experiments, assessments; and are free unless taken for credit. The modular format was designed for learners who need a specific skill set versus a traditional degree. It also meets the “re-skilling needs” of an economy that rewards workers who embrace lifelong learning.

For students who wish to pursue a traditional degree at a university, they can receive credit for edX courses, reducing the overall cost of a bachelor’s or master’s degree. Agarwal noted many of the biggest employers in the U.S. (e.g., Walmart, Google) will pay for employees to earn a MicroMasters™ via edX.

Of course, this brave new world of learning is not without its challenges. Accreditation for offering a pathway to credit “was tough,” Agarwal noted. Integrity, ensuring that the student registered is the student taking the tests, is done via virtual proctoring. The company is innovating other approaches to ensure integrity in course work as well as exams.

Despite the hurdles that remain, Agarwal remains committed to the edX vision of high-quality courses delivered virtually, unbundled from clocks and campuses. He encouraged university officials to prepare for the rapidly approaching “period of disruption” in higher education as more students earn their “unbundled credentials” online.

Listen to the complete talk on our CCTS YouTube channel.