<p>I thought the Mayan civilization caused its own demise. All those human sacrifices resulted in negative population growth. And the Spanish invasion didn't help.</p>
<p>At least that's what my husband told me. He just shot a documentary about them.</p>
<p>Yeah that's true also. Them and the Aztecs performed a lot of human sacrifices.</p>
<p>The US university system will become something more like what China has. It will be extremely competitive and grueling. Just look at how much more competitive and grueling colleges are now than they were fifty years ago.</p>
<p>I completely agree that it is only going to get more competitive. If the classes of 2008 and 2009 are supposed to some of the largest ever, then think about whats going to happen when all of us kids starting having our own kids.</p>
<p>I also think policies such as AA will decline in usage. If the projections become true, by 2050 a majority of Americans will have non-white backgrounds. In that situation, AA is virtually meaningless.</p>
<p>^I both agree and disagree. Race-based affirmative action will gradually become obsolete, but socioeconomic standing is already a factor in AA, and I believe it will replace ethnicity entirely at some point.</p>
<p>I think globalization is going to spread to colleges. We'll see more and more universities in India, China, and many, many other countries rise through the ranks and become known as world-class. This isn't to say that U.S. colleges will lose their luster, just that the best of them won't just be competing with each other, they'll be competing with universities around the world. I'm not sure if this will cause the numbers of international students to skyrocket (more students applying to all the best colleges, not just the ones in their country) or plummet (as more and more countries have world-class universities that dissuade students from going abroad for college), but it'll be interesting to find out.</p>
<p>The most competitive universities will be schools that focus on science, engineering, medicine and/or computers. Simply put, demand for experts in these fields is going to keep rising, and the best and brightest students will overwhelmingly be encouraged to enter these fields to keep up the technological advancement people want and need. Traditional liberal arts education won't vanish entirely, but it will be less in demand- and therefore top LACs will be less competitive to get into.</p>
<p>By 2100 Apple will probably have invented an Ipod that has a built-in university in it the way technology is going now. </p>
<p>Anyone for I-University Class of 100'?</p>
<p>I don't see Harvard ever losing its #1 status, that's for sure. I also don't really see the US system becoming hyper-competitive: we have tons of quality schools to spread people out across (and that's really what separates us from a lot of other countries), and college admissions competition should start leveling off a bit in the 201x's from what I've heard. Maybe the top schools will increase in selectivity, but there isn't that much to distinguish the "top schools" from other tier-1 schools academically anyway. </p>
<p>I see the Ivies losing a little bit of prestige, especially the not-Big Three, but for the most part the whole system being pretty similar. I agree with salamander that race-based AA will be replaced with socioeconomic AA.</p>
<p>The robber baron schools will accumulate even more tradition and eventually overtake the Ivies, I think.</p>
<p>In 2100 I'll be 110 years old, so I doubt I'll even know my own name...</p>
<p>I'll remind you. It's NotAmbidextrous.</p>