Education on the Dot: The Internet holds great promise for the democratization of education, but institutions of higher learning have yet to realize its full potential.

Peter Smith, Founding President of California State University, Monterey Bay and author of a new book, The Quiet Crisis: How Higher Education Is Failing America, writes in the current issue of Educause Review:

The current record of higher education simply is not good enough for the world we live in today. We need to be more successful with more students to create the middle class of America’s future.

Information technology lies at the heart of this challenge. Arguments that question the value of IT to the academy or that lowball the opportunity costs of failing to harness technology to its full potential in higher education both reflect and fuel an arrogant, confident complacency that ignores the underlying dangers. The United States is headed for social, civic, and economic disaster if we are not successful in graduating a far higher percentage of our population (from high schools as well as colleges/universities) while bringing working Americans back to finish their degrees. We are failing to educate large numbers of students (of all ages) successfully because we are employing an out-of-date educational model that ignores the available knowledge and IT resources.

Professor Smith articulates the systemic problems of higher education:

Historically, higher education has controlled its world by controlling its workforce, its curriculum content, and its certification/reward structure. But this de facto structural monopoly of authority and responsibility has been shattered as new types of institutions hire new kinds of faculty, offer new academic models and degree programs in the workplace and on personal time, and harness new technologies to supplement and support learning anytime, anyplace.

In the future, learning will be different. The company that built the most recognized brand in commercial education, Sylvan, is betting its future on the untapped opportunities in higher education, having sold its well-established operations in K-12 extra-curricular learning, and the well-known Sylvan name and trademarks, to Educate Inc. (www.educate.com)

Commencing today, the company formerly known as Sylvan Learning Systems Inc. takes on a new identity, and embarks on a new direction in higher education with a brand new name--Laureate.

They plan to build brand awareness mainly by association because the 14 universities and institutions they've acquired since 1998 in the United States, Europe and Latin America -- and one they've recently opened in China -- have their own names. Registration materials and other information will include the tagline "a member of the Laureate International University Network."

The name Laureate isn't getting very high marks from experienced professionals in naming and branding. Undoubtedly, it's going to be a challenge to build a brand around a name that looks like a tough Scrabble hand, and requires a university education to spell. Still, the company should be given credit for its visionary new direction.

From a naming and branding point of view, though, The Open University and MERLOT and Educause are leading brands in online education whose names come easily to mind.