I was thoroughly intrigued when I found out the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado was offering a degree in asteroid mining.

Yes, the idea of extracting water, oxygen, minerals, and metals from an asteroid sounds like science fiction to most people, but it’s not that far away.  In fact, Colorado School of Mines’ newly launched “Space Resources” program will help people get in on the ground floor.

After thinking about the proactive nature of this approach, it became abundantly clear how backward thinking most colleges have become.

When colleges decide on a new degree program, they must first recruit instructors, create a new curriculum, and attract students. As a result, the talent churned out of these newly minted programs is the product of a 6-7 year pipeline.

For this reason, anticipatory-thinking institutions really need to be setting their sights on what business and industries will need 7-10 years from now.

The Risk-Averse Nature of Education

When Harvard professor Clayton M. Christensen released his best-selling book, The Innovator’s Dilemma, his core message that disruptive change is the path to success, was only partially embraced by higher education.

While many were experimenting with MOOCs and smart whiteboards, changes in the subject matter of their courses still evolved at the traditional pace of discovery.

This is not to say colleges are not innovative. Rather, the demands of today’s emerging tech environment are forcing business and industries to shift into an entirely new gear. And that most definitely includes our academic institutions.

From a management perspective, it’s far easier to oversee a contained system where all variables are constrained. But during times of change, we tend to give far more power to the “unleashers,” who are determined to test the status quo and release ideas and trial balloons to see what works.

For this reason, managers and creatives often find themselves on opposing sides, and the winners of these warring factions often determine what we as consumers see as the resulting ripples of change.

Offering Pilot Programs

When Facebook bought Oculus Rift in March 2014 for $2 billion, the job boards went crazy, as there was an instant uptick in the demand for VR designers, engineers, and experience creators. But no one was teaching VR, and certainly not the Oculus Rift version of it.

Colleges have a long history of being blindsided by new technologies:

• When eBay launched, no one was teaching ecommerce strategies
• When Myspace launched, no one was teaching social networking
• When Google launched, no one was teaching online search engine strategies
• When Uber launched, no one was teaching sharing economy business models
• When Apple first opened their App Store, no one was teaching smart phone app design
• When Amazon first allowed online storefronts, no one was teaching the Amazon business model
• When YouTube first offered ways to monetize videos, no one was teaching it

Since most academic institutions are only willing to put their name on programs with long-term viability, the endorsement of half-baked agendas does not come easy. However, that is exactly what needs to be done.

Colleges can no longer afford to remain comfortably behind the curve.

52 Future College Degrees

As a way of priming your thinking on this matter, here are 52 future degrees that forward-thinking colleges could start offering today:

1. Space Exploration – space tourism planning and management
2. Space Exploration – planetary colony design and operation
3.  Space Exploration – next generation space infrastructure
4. Space Exploration – advanced cosmology and non-earth human habitats
5. Bioengineering with CRISPR – policy and procedural strategies
6. Bioengineering with CRISPR – advanced genetic engineering systems
7. Bioengineering with CRISPR – operational implementations and system engineering
8. Bioengineering with CRISPR – ethical regulation and oversight
9. Smart City – autonomous traffic integration
10. Smart City – mixed reality modeling
11. Smart City – autonomous construction integration
12. Smart City – next generation municipal planning and strategy
13. Autonomous Agriculture – robotic systems
14. Autonomous Agriculture – drone systems
15. Autonomous Agriculture – supply chain management
16. Autonomous Agriculture – systems theory and integration
17. Swarmbot – design, theory, and management
18. Swarmbot – system engineering and oversight
19. Swarmbot – municipal system design
20. Swarmbot – law enforcement and advanced criminology systems
21. Cryptocurrency – digital coin economics
22. Cryptocurrency – crypto-banking system design
23. Cryptocurrency – regulatory systems and oversight
24. Cryptocurrency – forensic accounting strategies
25. Blockchain – design, systems, and applications
26. Blockchain – blockchain for biological systems
27. Blockchain – large-scale integration structures
28. Blockchain – municipal system design strategies
29. Global Systems – system planning, architecture, and design
30. Global Systems – large-scale integration strategies
31. Global Systems – operational systems checks and balance
32. Global Systems – governmental systems in a borderless digital world
33. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle – drone film making
34. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle – command center operations
35. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle – municipal modeling and planning systems
36. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle – emergency response systems
37. Mixed Reality – experiential retail
38. Mixed Reality – three-dimensional storytelling
39. Mixed Reality – game design
40. Mixed Reality – therapeutic systems and design
41. Advanced Reproductive Systems – designer baby strategies, planning, and ethics
42. Advanced Reproductive Systems – surrogate parenting policy and approaches
43. Advanced Reproductive Systems – organic nano structures
44. Advanced Reproductive Systems – clone engineering and advanced processes
45. Artificial Intelligence – data management in an AI environment
46. Artificial Intelligence – advanced human-AI integration
47. Artificial Intelligence – streaming AI data services
48. Artificial Intelligence – advanced marketing with AI
49. Quantum Computing – data strategies in a quantum-connected world
50. Quantum Computing – quantum-level encryption and security
51. Quantum Computing – quantum computing implementation strategies
52. Quantum Computing – AI-quantum system integration

Final Thought

More so than any time in history, we have a clear view of next generation technologies. Naturally, we’re still a long way from 100% clarity, but for most of the technologies listed above, the shifting tectonic plates of change can be felt around the world.

Without taking decisive action, colleges run the risk of being circumvented by new types of training systems that can meet market demands in a fraction of the time it takes traditional academia to react.

The ideas I’ve listed are a tiny fraction of what’s possible when it comes to emerging tech degrees. Should colleges stick their neck out like Colorado School of Mines and offer degrees that may not be immediately useful? Adding to that question, how many college degrees are immediately useful today?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic.

Parents often ask me what their kids should be studying in college. The answer, however, is never as straightforward as they’d like because college is not always a good solution.

If a parent’s primary objective is for their kids to find a job, they should drop out today. Colleges aren’t about getting jobs, well, at least not directly. There are many ways to learn job skills but traditional college is usually the slowest and most expensive way to land a job.

In fact, many of the highest paying jobs in fields like computer programming, commercial pilots, cyber security, real-estate brokers, cloud architects, crime scene detectives, and web developers typically don’t require a degree at all.

Virtually any bright student can learn a marketable skill in less than 6 months. This means they could have several years of work experience by the time their counterparts graduate from college.

Once a person has a marketable skill, they can begin to take control their own destiny, and start themselves down the path to becoming a freelancer.

Yes, there’s a big difference between a newbie freelancer and one who’s a total rockstar, but it all begins with taking that first bold step, and that’s where life’s journey starts making sense.

Freelancer college, as I’m envisioning it, will be an intensive one-week course, where students begin this life-altering experience in a room filled with other wannabe freelancers.

As the gig economy grows, every free agent will need to surround themselves with a network of like-minded solopreneurs and the initial classroom training is a great place to start forming these networks.

The first thing that you, as a student, will learn is to take control of your life. As the owner/manager of “you incorporated,” every decision becomes a business decision. Being “in charge” changes how you talk about yourself, who your friends are, buying decisions, and what things become priorities.

The course will guide you through a roadmap of tools, systems, and techniques needed to forge an effective business model. But this is no ordinary roadmap. In so many ways it will become the mother of all roadmaps as it morphs, shifts, and changes with you for the rest of your life.

This should not be thought of as a restrictive pathway to trailblazing a future. Instead, freelancer college will likely become one of the most fertile approaches to continually build your opportunity landscape.

You don’t need to be an expert

Freelancers come in all shapes and sizes, and few young people will have the critical skills to command a high salary. But that’s okay.

Easy entry points are always day labor positions like offering a home laundry service, moving furniture, mowing lawns, walking dogs, or personal concierge.

• Home laundry services can easily grow into a variety of household management services where 3-5 households become a full-time business.
• Moving furniture can quickly transition from you doing the physical work, to you managing the process, offering additional staging and relocation services to expand the offering.
• Mowing lawns is a great way to begin a career as a freelance arborist, botanist, or professional groundskeeper.
• Walking dogs will often set the stage for a variety of freelance pet services like dog grooming, vet runs, and doggy spas and vacations.
• Personal concierge is a perfect door opener for offering personal protection services, publicist, reputation manager, or life coach.

In each of these situations, a handful of good clients can launch a productive freelance career.

Freelancer college learning modules

As with every multi-discipline form of training there are a variety of topics to focus on. Here are a few critical skills that most people will need early on.

• Fan club management – Every person has a fan club, a circle of friends who cheer them along life’s journey. Developing a productive “friends network,” and learning how to grow, manage, and interact with it, becomes an enormously important piece of the freelancer equation.
• How to create a website – Every freelancer will need a website along with good copy and at least one video. An effective website will leave many impressions highlighting unique characteristics, but most will need a crystal clear explanation of what you’re selling, great testimonials, past client list, and some form of “buy now” button.
• Marketing & lead generation 101 – Who are your ideal clients? Where do they live? What magazines do they read, what TV shows do they watch, what income do they make, and where is the best place to randomly bump in to them? There are many “leads groups” to help introduce you to the people you need to know.
• How to produce low cost videos – Posting a video or series of videos on Facebook, YouTube, and your website is an essential part of getting started.
• How to price your services – While you may think you’re offering a valuable service, clients will often have a different opinion. What’s the best way to “sell” them on you as well as the service you’re offering?
• Creating a business proposal – Who is in charge of the deal? If you submit a proposal, you have the advantage of controlling the terms of the deal.
• Contract negotiation – Having a boilerplate, fill-in-the-blanks contract is an easy way to start, but it also needs to give the impression that you know what you’re doing.
• Understanding legal entities – Should your business be set up as a sole proprietorship, partnership, C Corp, S Corp, LLP, or LLC? Should it be a for-profit or non-profit business, and what are the advantages and disadvantages?
• Networking tips and tricks – Your first client is only one networking event away. Learning to meet and greet prospective clients is indeed an art form.
• Social media management – Social media is not only a business tool but also a service you can offer to prospective clients.
• Overview of back office technology – How to purchase and manage your business tech. The right configuration of tools and gear can save you huge amounts of time.
• How to build a referral network – Even a half dozen people who regularly refer clients to you can be worth their weight in gold. But referrals go both ways so be prepared to give more than you get.
• Accounting 101 – What’s the best way to create invoices and track expenses? If you’re not good at managing your own books, find someone who is.
• How to manage the emotional side of business – Rejection is never easy, and getting criticism and bad reviews on Yelp, Google, and Facebook is often hard to take. Finding a support group to keep your head strait is critical. Virtually every good entrepreneur has someone they can lean on for advice, solve problems, and answer critical questions.

Ongoing education

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking colleges know what’s best for you. After all, they’ve been educating tens of thousand of people for hundreds of years, so they must be doing something right.

Sadly, colleges don’t know what’s best for you, only you do.

That’s what sets Freelancer College apart because it’s all about you and turning your talents into marketable business opportunities.

Millions of people around the globe are opting for greater independence in their work lives. As a result, they are joining the gig economy. Advances in technology have made it easier to launch, grow, and manage these types of businesses than ever before.

Here are a few stats about the growing gig economy:

• Researchers project that over half of the working U.S. population will be part of the gig economy within the next five years.
• One-third of U.S. office workers have a second job and more than half (56%) predict they will have multiple jobs in the future.
• More than one-third of Millennials are already independent workers.
• By 2025, over 75% of the workforce will be comprised of Millennials.
• 80% of freelancers use social media as a means of finding work.
• Researchers have concluded that nearly all of the net job growth in the economy since 2005 has been in freelance and alternative work arrangements.
• The European Union saw a 45% increase in the number of independent workers from 2012 to 2013.
• India’s independent workforce, the second largest in the world, currently has about 40% of the world’s freelance jobs.

Accomplishment-based education

The best learning always occurs when you have a project where you can instantly apply the things you learn.

Writing a book, receiving a patent, or starting a business are all noteworthy symbols of achievement in today’s world. But being the author of a book that sells 50,000 copies, or inventing a product that a million people buy, or building a business that grosses over $10 million in annual sales are all significant accomplishments far more meaningful than their academic equivalents.

Most of what happens in today’s universities is based on “symbols of achievement,” not actual accomplishments.

Academic competitions pit students against each other to produce results that best match their teacher’s expectations. Only rarely will they produce anything noteworthy.

Completing a class is nothing more than a symbol of achievement. Similarly, completing many classes and receiving a diploma is noteworthy, but still only a vague representation of a real accomplishment.

No, this doesn’t mean that classroom training has no value. But, what we achieve in a classroom is at least one level of abstraction removed from a real-world accomplishment.

In the business world, it’s only an accomplishment if someone is willing to pay for it.

The global marketplace is not looking for people who have learned how to be great students. It wants results.

Criteria for graduation

Those who complete Freelancer College will get a certificate. But to receive a “Master Freelancer Certification,” students will need to demonstrate a definable market niche that closely aligns with their own personal expertise, and demonstrate certain criteria such as:

• Working with at least five clients per month
• Generating at minimum $10,000 every month for 12 months straight.

Ironically, those who manage to do this won’t really care about receiving the “Master Freelancer Certification.” That type of achievement will pale in comparison to their own real-world accomplishments.

Using other freelancers to help

Being a freelancer doesn’t mean you’re flying solo all the time.

The Internet is a very sophisticated communications tool that enables us to align the needs of business with the talent of individuals in far more precise ways than ever before. So rather than employ a full time person, companies will “hire” someone for 2 months, 2 weeks, 2 days, or even 2 hours.

While our tools for working with this level of precision are not quite as efficient as they should be, it’s only a matter of time.

It will also be a short time before we’ll have services that pair freelancers with other freelancers. We only have so many hours in a day, so leveraging the talent of others will become a routine part of every free agent’s toolbox.

Companies are also losing the restrictive notions of “place.” For many, the need for a physical location is either dwindling or disappearing. Business is becoming very fluid in how it operates, and the driving force behind this liquefaction is a digital marketplace that connects buyers with sellers faster and more efficiently than ever in the past.

Final Thoughts

I often think about the Ritz Carlton motto, “We are Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen.”

People who hire a freelancer have respect for your abilities. At the same time, with any good relationship, you’ll have respect for the work they’re trying to accomplish.

Over time you’ll be able to influence the nature of projects, as well as the path to accomplishment, and take pride in your achievements.

Rather than settling for whoever wanted to hire you, you have the ability to migrate to the top quickly, avoiding all the infighting and office politics involved in climbing the corporate ladder, sway people’s thinking, and make a meaningful difference along the way.

No, being a freelancer doesn’t come with health insurance, vacation time, or a 401k plan. But what it does offer is far greater.

You’re in control so you get to decide who you want as a client, when you’re available for work, and most often, how much you’ll get paid. Yes, sometimes you’ll get fired from a project, but you can also fire your client.

Freelancing done right will give you a far higher salary, a far more influential circle of friends, and most importantly, the ability to make a difference.

By Futurist Thomas Frey

Author of “Epiphany Z – 8 Radical Visions for Transforming Your Future”

When I first brought up the idea of coworking taking over colleges, it seemed like an absurd notion. But there is a secret reason that very few people are grasping.

At first glance, the highly structured ivory towers of academia seem to be on the opposite end of the spectrum from the unstructured anything-goes world of coworking. But the more I thought about it, it seems inevitable that the two are on a collision course.

In fact, it’s already happening, but not in the ways you may imagine.

Geekdom, a San Antonio-based coworking hub launched in 2012, has piloted an educational program called SparkEd where over 1,500 young people have enrolled in their workshops and “weekend camps.”

In Baltimore, the team behind Betamore has positioned itself as a coworking campus for entrepreneurs and their technology. Its purpose is to invigorate the Baltimore ecosystem with a unique curriculum that is open to the community.

The Posner Center in Denver is a network of over 200 companies focused on the international development of agriculture, education, energy, health, infrastructure, microfinance, and various other fields. As a mission oriented coworking facility, they are very selective in who they choose to work with, and education and training courses are an every day occurrence.

Our work at DaVinci Institute is also a prime example with our 11-13 week DaVinci Coder courses for learning new programming languages in a coworking environment.

No, there are no coworking locations currently offering a four-year bachelor degree, but that’s exactly the point. The status that colleges think they’re conveying is not the same status that today’s young people care to receive.

In the emerging gig economy where 36% of all work is already being done by freelancers, Millennials no longer feel they have the luxury of blowing 4-5 years and a boatload of money learning abstract concepts when they can take a 3-4 month coding bootcamp and learn while doing actual work that they’re being paid for.

The Recent Coworking Surge

So what is it about coworking, defined as membership-based workspaces where diverse groups of freelancers, remote workers, and other independent professionals work together in a shared, communal setting, so effective?

An estimated 20,000 coworking facilities currently dot the American landscape, and over 1,700 have signed their allegiance to the Coworking Manifesto, an online document that spells out the theory, philosophy, and working strategy of this new movement.

Here are ten stats explaining why coworking has become so insanely popular:

1. 40% of the workers will be freelancers, temps, independent contractors and solopreneurs by 2020.
2. 70% reported they felt healthier than they did working in a traditional office setting.
3. 64% of coworkers are better able to complete tasks on time.
4. 68% said they were able to focus better while co-working.
5. 92% are satisfied with their co-working space.
6. 91% have better interactions with others after co-working.
7. 60% are more relaxed at home since co-working.
8. 78% of coworkers are under 40.
9. 90% said they felt more confident when working.
10. 50% report higher incomes.

The Business of “You”

How many schools are currently prepping students to be “freelancer-ready?” In a word – none. It’s simply not happening.

Instead, the hard transition from student grunt to skilled worker is occurring in radically new ways – through friends, through trial and error, and through existing project workers.

Mentorship is quickly becoming the new classroom.

When LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman says, “You need to think and act like you’re running a start-up,” he’s referring to your own career.

Every new free agent that enters the project-to-project job world quickly realizes that their growing lists of questions simply don’t have textbook answers. They have to find their own answers, and the quickest way is through peer groups and mentors.

Living in a country with the highest educated waitresses and bartenders in the world, an increasingly vocal underground feels they’ve been lied to. Academic credentials no longer live up to the promise implied with every new student loan that’s being applied for.

That’s one of the reasons coworking is becoming so trendy; they’re looking for a better network.

Finding a New Path to Success

Anyone growing up has a rough idea of what they think success should look like.

For teenagers, their heroes are people who have launched their own video games, started a band, filmed a rockumentary, created a mobile app, written a graphic novel, or won a major video game tournament. To them, the accolades and notoriety that come with this kind of experience far outweighs the tedium involved in credentialing new skills.

For Millennials, nothing resonates quite like being involved in an authentic accomplishment-based learning experience where meaningful work is making a meaningful impact.

Experience trumps diplomas every day of the weeks.

A Tech Industry that Doesn’t Care About Diplomas

Many of today’s tech gurus have been self-taught. Bill Gates, Tom Hanks, Madonna, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Dell, Paul Allen, Ben Stiller, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Matt Damon, and Sean Combs are some of the smartest and most influential people in the world, none of whom graduated from college.

When applying for a coding job, company interviewers are far more interested in a person’s capabilities than their time spent in academia. In fact a computer science degree will often work against them as it conveys far more theory and far less actual coding.

In the fast moving tech world where innovations are typically 7-10 years ahead of academia’s talent pool, those who can demonstrate jerry-rigged accomplishments and resourceful curiosity become the most sought after.

Emerging fields like augmented reality designers, virtual reality educators, user experience architects, artificial intelligence testers, search engine optimizers, and online reputation managers are all part of a growing lists of jobs that have no university pathway to get there.

Much like becoming a rock star, game designer, professional athlete, race car driver, or movie star, landing a dream job has never been about taking the safe route, especially since there’s virtually no such thing as a safe route anymore.

Competing for Fun

Even though colleges get in trouble for promoting the fun side of campus life, it becomes a major part of every incoming student’s decision

Coworking facilities are also competing for the “fun” crowd, with many offering free beer, free food, ping pong, arcade games, air hockey, foosball, exercise rooms, indoor theaters, bocce ball, and more.

Will we see coworking sports teams competing against other coworking sports teams anytime soon? Yes, but it will probably be in non-traditional sports like ping pong, Arduino hackathons, and video game tournaments instead of football, baseball, and hockey.

The Secret Reason Why Coworking will Replace Colleges

We are moving into a very fluid society and traditional tenant-landlord relationships simply don’t work very well.

Signing a ten-year lease in a world being framed around exponential change measured in days rather than years is a quantum leap of faith most companies would rather not take.

Real estate has become a millstone around every fast-moving company’s neck.

For this reason coworking spaces have been quickly filling up with small corporate teams, telecommuters, and remote project groups, each of whom place a far greater emphasis on flexibility than cost and stability.

Colleges are being caught up in similar dynamics.

Since most colleges have large real estate holdings, they’ve also had to deal with rapidly escalating maintenance, janitorial, security, and facility overhead costs.

The inflexible cost of operations is running headlong into a world where shifting attitudes, lifestyles, and career goals are not only more common, they’re becoming the norm.

This means colleges in the future will not only have to deal with rapid ebbs and flows in student populations and staffing, but campus operations as well.

That’s why a host of hybrid coworking style experiments will begin to permeate campus life. Flexibility is key, and the rigid decision-making processes involved in most universities simply won’t work.

Final Thoughts

Colleges are in a scaling-down mode, many fighting to survive, while coworking is in a massive scaling up mode with big time investment money paving the way for rapid expansion.

In this rapidly escalating battle for talent, coworking is becoming cooler, trendier, less expensive, and far more fun than spending countless grueling hours in a classroom memorizing troves of terminology and squishy theories while watching the tuition meter in the front of the room click another notch higher with every word uttered from the professor’s mouth.

Will we see coworking universities in the future that offer college credits for doing freelance work? Yes, I believe this will happen very soon.

There are very few things in human existence that will remain untouched by today’s entrepreneurial teams scouring the world looking for new opportunities, and colleges have become a prime target.