You wrote: "For universities and colleges, now is the time to examine operating models and assumptions, before the full impact of the recession hits."

This morning I presented a paper at a conference on higher education that suggested (gasp!) that the current model for developing online higher education content is both terribly inefficient and ensures that the quality of the content will never be particularly strong.
The truly scary thing is this: large organizations, like colleges and universities, don't typically change a great deal. History shows that they only change once beaten by newcomers who introduce new, better operating models. We need new models now.