ABSTRACT
Higher education is at the crossroads, facingdemographic changes, on-demand learning,and privatization. Each of these issues is discussed in the following entries dealing with for-profit higher education institutions, academic ownership, and student diversity. The issues of for-profit institutions, academic ownership and property, and student diversity are examined thoroughly in light of political, socioeconomic, and technological changes of traditional public and private colleges and universities. Changes in societal attitudes and technological advances have allowed for innovative structures to be developed in higher education. The educational opportunities that have arisen provide a gateway to both nontraditional and traditional college students seeking a college education. Programs that are now becoming more performance-based are beginning to gain a foothold in higher education. It can be demonstrated that these performance-based programs have been initiated by the standards-based movement, which has migrated from primary and secondary schools and has infiltrated institutions of higher education. The new performance-based programs are well suited to employers who are more concerned with what candidates can do rather than what they were supposed to have learned.
