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IT and the Ivory Tower (continued)

Academia Doesn't Pay
It may be unrealistic to expect universities to ever match their enterprise peers. "Universities are large bureaucratic organizations that have very limited resources. With technology changing so rapidly, they just don't have the budget to buy the latest hardware or software technology as it emerges -- particularly because it's always more expensive when it first comes out," says Johnson. "Since they don't have the budget to purchase the latest technology, they don't have the ability to develop a curriculum around it, and they can't teach it."

Nor are commercial companies likely to lend a hand in sharing cutting-edge technology. "Research is no longer funded when it does not have some kind of predictable short- or medium-term return. As a result, most discoveries are made in commercial companies that share their developments no sooner than when they are certain they can make money with it," explains Dorsman.

Dorsman notes that proprietary interests prevent him from releasing information on his own research developments. "If I were doing the same [research] at a university, I would have published at least five white papers over the past five years," he says. "Sadly, no university would fund this."

The fundamental fact is, while the mind is not limited by resources, academic institutions are. Expecting colleges and universities to replace employee training entirely is an outdated notion. It is not even possible to impart all the latest knowledge in a specific domain.

Instead, says De Loght, "higher education should prepare people for flexible and permanent, life-long learning. Even if you spend five years or so at university, you still have 40 years to go in your professional life. It would be better to focus on the 40 years."

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