To better accomplish that desire, Smith, a professor of information technology and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, proposes disrupting the traditional university model by utilizing technology to promote greater access and affordability.

Smith shared the thesis of his book at a town hall Thursday afternoon at Utah Valley University in Orem and, alongside TJ Bliss, an associate commissioner for academic affairs for the Utah System of Higher Education, answered questions regarding his proposals.

“Technology will change how we deliver higher education … We as educators should want to embrace this change, and I think we have a way to embrace this change,” he said.

Smith argued that higher education has been dominated by a limited number of powerful universities for centuries because they control three scarce resources: access to seats in the classroom, access to faculty experts and access to the necessary credentials.

He said the model has created an expensive, unequal product, citing data that a child born in the top 1% of family income is 77 times more likely to be admitted to one of the top 60 most selective universities than someone in the bottom 20%.

Technology, however, has expanded the abundance of the first two resources — access to knowledge and the world’s top experts — meaning credentials are the only thing keeping the model intact, according to Smith.

“You don’t need to get admitted to Carnegie Mellon University anymore to get access to some of the world’s top experts,” he said. “If someone were to figure out a way to allow you to signal your true knowledge without needing to spend a quarter of a million dollars and four years of your time, I think a lot of things would change and change fairly rapidly.”

UVU says it is adhering to some of these principles, as evidenced in President Astrid S. Tuminez’s 2025 state of the university address, where she cited Smith’s book and said that the university is increasing accessibility to learning through open admission and hands-on learning.

“UVU is the abundant university,” said Tuminez, according to a UVU story recapping the speech. “We are here to serve. Whoever you are, your seats, and whatever role you play, you and I are here to serve. I want to thank all of you for sharing the privilege of serving with UVU.”

According to Thursday’s presenters, though, abundance goes beyond just access. It needs to focus on creating a more efficient educational experience in response to the changes in technology, where the credential isn’t the only benefit.

Bliss spoke of a family member who chose to leave UVU because he thought the content he received from his courses could have come from YouTube. Bliss lauded UVU for its efforts in becoming adaptive, but said higher education needs to be more intentional in designing a curriculum that focuses less on content and more on durable skills.

“We have not figured out how to make explicit for those students that this is the reason you’re here,” Bliss said. “What you can get while you’re in this course, during this time frame, is something you can’t get by going out there. … Can they talk intelligently about the durable skills they got from their courses, how they improved in leadership, how their adaptability increased by being here? They will not talk about that from watching YouTube videos.”

Smith suggested a more adaptable university program that doesn’t just adhere to the in-person lecture model but gives students more options — such as choosing a teacher that fits their style or a course that accommodates to their own learning pace.

Bliss added that online courses are a viable option.

“I had a fear that I wouldn’t be able to connect with (students) online,” he said. “That’s not the case, but you have to know how to do it. You have to do it. You have to trust that there’s research on this. We have to apply the same scholarship and discipline and rigor that we do to everything else to our pedagogy.”