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The World of Education

Return on Education: access, costs, outcomes and leverage, with Deborah Quazzo

In this episode, we look at EdTech trends post-pandemic, glean a couple of key takeaways from the latest ASU+GSV summit, speculate on the race to the first $100B EdTech company, and, most importantly, talk about Return on Education and what a ROE school would look like.

The Enrollhand Team

• 3 min read

"We look at return on education. That means increasing access, lowering costs, improving learning outcomes and leveraging the learning leader, the teacher, the faculty member. And I would love to see a high ROE school. It probably would be an online school and it would be hiigh access, low tuition, incredibly high learning efficacy, real leverage for the teachers involved in delivering the learning." - Deborah Quazzo

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Summary

Our guest today is Deborah Quazzo, the cofounder and managing partner of GSV Ventures, one of the earliest and more prestigious venture funds investing in the entire spectrum of education from PreK to Gray including companies that we all use daily such as Coursera, Classdojo, Clever, Quizziz and many more. Deborah is also the cofounder of the annual annual ASU+GSV Summit which attracts over 5000 visitors each year, now 13 years in, and is where the major education trends are revealed each year.

In this episode, we look at EdTech trends post-pandemic, glean a couple of key takeaways from the latest ASU+GSV summit, speculate on the race to the first $100B EdTech company, and, most importantly, talk about Return on Education and what a ROE school would look like.

Some thoughts from our discussion:

The shift to online edu is unstoppable. Higher Ed was already moving due to low campus capacity and working adults' schedules. In K12, many parents want to go back, but there's not enough physical delivery space/time to remediate. So virtual learning is here to stay.

13:22 - We're going to need supplemental learning and it's going to have to be digital because they're just not enough physical delivery time or ability to do that. We also have huge teacher shortages to add on top of that. So while I think that the demand for being back physically is very valid and real and important for kids, there will be a very important continued infusion of digital curriculum and digital services like tutoring, to address that gaping hole that's been left by the pandemic for kids who really just lost a year of learning

Parents have gotten a window into their kids' learning experience, and they are now taking charge of this experience and sometimes moving it into a home or pod.

We're seeing a race to the 1st $100B EdTech company (with Byju in the lead) through a mix of savvy acquisitions and organic growth. This is really transforming the landscape into a flat global playing field.

22:53 - One of the biggest changes in EdTech os how flat the EdTech world has become. It used to be it was so parochial; you were an American company or you are Indian company and "never the twain shall meet". Now, EdTech as an export is one of our fundamental investment themes. Whether it's Quizziz, based in India, but basically in a 100% of US schools at this point, or Eruditus, based in India, acquire a K-12 company in the US. It's both geographic expansion and pre-K to Gray expansion and that's how you're going to get to a hundred billion.
24:45 - You've got bigger players, they've got a lot of capital, they can spend a lot of money on student acquisition if they want, if they choose to. And, and so that makes other players have to develop other strategies or other go-to-markets markets, to win their way around those gorillas in the market. So I think that's definitely a play right now.

The best way to win in this market whether you are a school or startup? Increase Return on Education: Increasing access, lowering costs, improving learning outcomes and leveraging the learning leader, the teacher, the faculty member.

26:42 - We look at return on education. That means increasing access, lowering costs, improving learning outcomes and leveraging the learning leader, the teacher, the faculty member. And I would love to see a high ROE school. It probably would be an online school and it would be hiigh access, low tuition, incredibly high learning efficacy, real leverage for the teachers involved in delivering the learning.

Here are some resources mentioned in our discussion:

Here are the key takeaways from the GSU+ASV summit:

Where to learn more about Deborah:

Where to learn more about Enrollhand:

Website: www.enrollhand.com

Our webinar: https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com

Our free Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolgrowth/

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