Higher ed commish: Colleges should adapt to personalized system

The one-size-fits-all system for delivering higher education should be molded to a more personalized approach, Commissioner for Higher Education Teresa Lubbers said recently."The best opportunity for increasing higher education's value proposition is by building a system around the learner — both recent high school graduates and returning adults — that prepares them for a dynamic economy," she told more than 80 people gathered in the Indiana Statehouse to hear her annual State of Higher Education address."Our system of higher education must adapt to today's learners by offering more personalized, more 'just in time' and more continuous learning," she said.There shouldn't be a policy and funding tug of war between providing Hoosiers with more education and those seeking more training, Lubbers said."I'd like to make a case for why pitting these against each other, or more accurately talking about them in separate ways, is counterproductive to our need to align strategies and design career pathways," Lubbers said.She noted that her state commission has for five years focused on ways to serve working-age adults.