That title might wind up a few people, but I was quite keen on a story from the US on how a community college was dealing with waiting lists at the moment. They have made a deal with a for-profit training provider (The Princeton Review) for healthcare students to take online courses, with some in-person courses, at a higher cost than what regular students pay. The Princeton Review brings capital and an online learning infrastructure, while the community college had 1,000 applicants for 72 places on a nursing programme this year, providing plenty of leads.

I can’t see it working in NZ, because we don’t have the same unmet demand for education and people are used to paying much the same price for tertiary education, but it is an interesting concept. We might see more public-private partnering in future here, but I don’t underestimate the differences between here and the US’ incredibly diverse tertiary education system. I went to a conference over there once where they had specialists in delivering instant libraries and even furniture movers specialising in education!