Is It Too Late To Reinvent Our Universities?There are literally hundreds of ways to make the system better, and like many invested parents and business thinkers, my hand is up if university leaders are looking for help. ... more than 40% of U.S. colleges and universities face stagnant or falling tuition revenue and enrollment.Forbes ID-8cb83f4c-7d2f-4601-9e2a-83f61bae617d Mike MaddockContributor -- as a dad, entrepreneur, optimist and Idea Monkey, [I submit] three empowering concepts that colleges should have embraced 10 years ago, and with the proper leadership, they could absolutely be dominating today. (If they are serious about trying to reinvent themselves, these ideas could be a good place to start.)Colleges & UniversitiesObviously, most of our nation’s colleges and universities chose not to go down any of [these] paths. Equally, as a result, they are in a lot of trouble.Kaplan LearningThe new rage is going online. It’s ironic that companies like Kaplan Learning were ridiculed for this idea when it first emerged about 10 years ago. Now colleges are moving in this direction en masse. It is going to take a whole lot more than tuition cuts and Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) to save them.To help college and university presidents answer the question: What business should we be in? ID-246481c1-3eae-4e2b-bd8f-923c608bb4d9Accelerator UInvest in students and take a stake in the outcome ID-0926d350-f6e5-46b9-a819-2eba73d53ce01Today, the primary raw goods for entrepreneurial accelerators are smart, young dreamers, technology and a central hub to meet. Sounds like a college campus to me. Why not invest in students and take a stake in the outcome instead of having them pay up front?Apprenticeship UAsk graduates to enroll students into apprenticeship programs ID-0ebe52b8-46ed-4bb7-a5aa-693c360a65772Most colleges have famous graduates running spectacular companies. Most colleges make a habit out of regularly going to them with their hands out, asking them to contribute to a new science lab, scoreboard or arts center. Instead, why not have them enroll your best students into an apprenticeship program that sets them up for a job with…drumroll…famous graduate’s company? Done right, high school seniors could sign up for THIS program instead of the usual BA to MBA sausage machine.CrowdSourced EdEnable kids to learn from luminaries, visionaries and revolutionaries from every corner of the earth ID-eb99c03e-12c3-4e90-aef3-14f1b205a09d3When Wikipedia launched in 2001, the skeptics came out en masse. Experts -- some of whom worked at Encyclopedia Britannica -- asked, how could "facts" sourced from the crowd be trusted? Well, it turns out the crowd knows more about the world than some academics do. And with a world that is changing so incredibly fast, why not create a format where kids can learn from luminaries, visionaries and revolutionaries from every corner of the earth? Imagine a university that taps the universe, saying, in essence, "None of us is as smart as all of us." Sign my kids up!2013-12-122014-01-12http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemaddock/2013/12/13/is-it-too-late-to-reinvent-our-universities/OwenAmburOwen.Ambur@verizon.net