Education Revolution: Ben Nelson Of Minerva Project On Innovative Approaches That Are Transforming Education
The single biggest problem with the US education system is that it teaches disconnected academic subjects in short bursts. This approach prompts students to cram information into their short-term memory in order to pass tests, then promptly forget.
The landscape of education is undergoing a profound transformation, propelled by technological advancements, pedagogical innovations, and a deepened understanding of learning diversities. Traditional classrooms are evolving, and new modes of teaching and learning are emerging to better prepare students for the complexities of the modern world. This series will take a look at the groundbreaking work being done across the globe to redefine education. As a part of this interview series, we had the pleasure to interview Ben Nelson.
As Founder & CEO of Minerva® Project, Ben Nelson is driving global educational reform through multiple, interrelated initiatives. For existing institutions in secondary, undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education sectors, Minerva provides an adaptive academic model that transforms curriculum, instruction, and assessment by anchoring on specific, measurable skills. Through the Minerva University System, Minerva is building a network of new institutions under the Minerva banner.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share the “backstory” behind what brought you to this particular career path?
When I was a first-year college student, I took a course about the history of the American university and realized that the founding fathers of the United States constructed a modern nation with the assumption that citizens would be educated in what they referred to as practical or useful knowledge. This is the kind of knowledge that allows you to be successful in any domain you choose, to switch from one career to another, and to be able to vote in your best interests and those of society at large.
What I realized was that universities were not doing any such thing; this was more than 30 years ago and things have only gotten worse since then. At the same time, I also began working in the commercial internet, as it emerged as a sector in the mid-1990s. I saw how small start-ups could overturn decades-old incumbents. I wanted to pursue an entrepreneurial path, but didn’t realize that my passion to reform education would collide with that path years later.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I learned how important timing is when I was CFO of Snapfish, an online photofinisher which at the time primarily developed film and digitized the negatives. In 2001, we agreed to sell the company. The signing of the agreement was scheduled for the day after I returned from a two-week vacation on September 11, 2001. Needless to say, that deal did not go through.
However, we renegotiated and locked in a new date. We needed one more signature from a vendor to complete the sale, but the vendor’s General Counsel was hiking in Colorado. Rather than waiting for the following day, I pressed their CEO to locate the GC and get the signature, which occurred 15 minutes before the deadline for wiring the money that day.
The following morning, the US government discovered an Anthrax laced letter sent to Congress and declared that all mail would be irradiated through three postal offices. These were the same postal offices through which all Snapfish film would be shipped before being developed, ruining all of it. If the sale hadn’t gone through the previous day, it would not have gone through at all.
Can you briefly share with our readers why you are an authority in the education field?
I envisioned and established Minerva Project, which built Minerva University, the only privately held, elite higher education brand in history. Minerva University is also the first university launched since the 19th century to have garnered a global #1 ranking, which it has retained for five consecutive years. Minerva Project has taken that same breakthrough model and implemented it in more than 30 educational institutions in a dozen countries, dramatically improving learning outcomes in every instance.
Can you identify some areas of the US education system that are going really great?
That’s nearly impossible. Literacy and numeracy rates are falling. High School students are sitting for the same final exams in the same academic subjects without any real-world applications, but with massively inflated grades compared to the past. Universities are bloated and run by an assortment of faculty, who have the mandate to do whatever they want in their classes. They have no incentives to ensure their students learn the competencies their institutions purport to provide, and those that might lack the systems needed to do so.
Education technology providers generally make things worse, especially if they are endorsed by powerful non-profits. A prime example is Illustrative Math, which has gotten hundreds of millions of dollars from school districts based on its Gates Foundation endorsement, only to see math scores in those districts continue to plummet.
The one bright light that I know of is Prisms of Reality, a virtual reality math and science education program that is now educating more than 500,000 students across 40 states. The system is producing dramatic improvements, not only in test scores, but in connecting math and science concepts to real-world problems and occupations that students need to understand.
Can you identify the key areas of the US education system that should be prioritized for improvement? Can you explain why those are so critical?
The single biggest problem with the US education system is that it teaches disconnected academic subjects in short bursts (ten months in high school or 12–15 weeks in university). This approach prompts students to cram information into their short-term memory in order to pass tests, then promptly forget. This is a catastrophic waste of time and resources for society, costing more than $1T in the United States alone and squandering more than twenty-five million person-years annually.
Now is the time to build capacity in humans, to impart the skills needed for success in our society. We need our people to thrive in their careers, to be effective citizens, and to build the kinds of enduring human relationships necessary to move our society forward. Instead, we are allowing an erosion in social connections, a collapse in our democratic institutions, and an impending artificial intelligence takeover that will render “learning on the job” an impossible task and spending four years at a traditional university a career ending liability.
Please tell us all about the innovative educational approaches that you are using. What is the specific problem that you aim to solve, and how have you addressed it?
We have almost 150 years of cognitive and behavioral research into the way humans learn. Some of the most profound findings relate to active engagement in the learning process, desirable levels of difficulty, and deliberate, spaced practice across diverse contexts.
Many of these techniques are already common in other domains. Consider how people learn to play a sport. The tennis player trains actively, progressing from basic forehand and backhand swings to serves and volleys, and playing against a variety of opponents in different weather and on different court surfaces. The Minerva model brings that same approach to the cognitive tools needed to learn any subject matter in secondary and post-secondary education. This means that students are first introduced to dozens of components of various systems of thought. They then apply those systems thinking skills repeatedly, across multiple contexts, and over time. Furthermore, these same skills are interwoven across disciplines, so that their utility extends far beyond the domains in which they are originally introduced.
By the time learners emerge from Minerva programs, they can tackle nearly any challenge, in any combination of contexts, enabling them to thrive in diverse careers and be highly functioning members of society.
In what ways do you think your approach might shape the future of education? What evidence supports this?
We believe that all educational programs must evolve to be coherent, as opposed to an array of disconnected subjects taught by independent faculty. From a founding class of 25 students twelve years ago in our prototype Minerva University to more than 50,000 students in Minerva-designed programs around the world, we are seeing profound results for students of all backgrounds in a wide variety of institutions. We are now working to accelerate our impact by extending the model even further.
How do you measure the impact of your innovative educational practices on students’ learning and well-being?
We used a number of measures when we were building our initial model, including third party evaluations (in which we set new achievement records) and internal measurements. But the ultimate proof is in student success.
At the first institution that we built, more than 90% of students could not get into Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, or Cambridge. Yet when looking at job opportunities in their fields of interest, graduate school placements, and rates of successful entrepreneurship, our alumni have outpaced graduates from all of those other universities. This is far more dramatic when adjusting for socio-economic standing. During the period we studied, only 13% of the student body in a typical Ivy League university came from households making less than $50,000 per year. At Minerva University that figure was 60%.
What challenges have you faced in implementing your educational innovations, and how have you overcome them?
Every paradigm shift, especially those that rely on a voluntary change in entrenched beliefs and behaviors, faces resistance. Change elicits anxiety and a natural tendency to cling to the status quo. Often, those who intellectually understand our approach will struggle mightily when asked to shift their own habits and unlearn ineffective behaviors. Overcoming such resistance requires a multifaceted approach, including training and faculty development, new processes and incentives, sustained communication campaigns, and various structural support mechanisms.
A central aspect of the Minerva model is our Forum® learning and data platform. Forum is purpose built for three key groups: institutional leaders and administrators, design and instructional faculty, and learners. It includes tools for constructing skill-focused courses, facilitating fully active learning sessions, and collecting and managing authentic learning data. These data not only provide deep insights into learners’ progress, they can also help identify where additional training, support, or other interventions are needed.
Keeping in mind the “Law of Unintended Consequences” can you see any potential drawbacks of this innovation that people should think more deeply about?
The biggest drawback to the Minerva model is how difficult it is for traditional institutions to adopt. It requires strong leadership, engaged faculty participation and support, and the time and effort needed to overhaul curricula and implement new systems. It is less effective when the approach is only partially adopted or delivered with mixed fidelity, so institutions need to be prepared to take on comprehensive reform.
At this point, I believe very few have any credible reason not to. Though U.S. universities have been claiming to teach essential human competencies for decades, the data show otherwise. The public is now broadly aware of how corrupted the system has become, so parents and students are increasingly reluctant to “invest” in a four-year, campus-based experience. Add the impending threat of widespread job-losses from AI and they really have no choice. We cannot wait for more “thoughtful experiments,” small pilots, and overly simplistic interventions when we already know how to implement the transformation students and society so badly need.
What are your “5 Things I Wish I Knew When I First Started”?
1. I wish I knew how much money it would take to promote and sustain a world-class brand. Our brand is very strong where it is known, but we have a long way to go before Minerva is widely recognized.
2. I wish I had a full understanding of just how unattainable tuition costs are for most of the world — even when much less than other top universities charge. The cost to run a top-tier institution makes it difficult to provide access to lower-income learners without substantial philanthropic funding.
3. I wish I knew how important it is to screen for true believers to join a purpose-driven organization. Many people are attracted to successful innovation without having the commitment needed to see it through.
4. I wish I knew how unethical many institutions are, and to be careful about dealing with bad actors who talk a good game. This would have saved us substantial time, energy, money, and aggravation.
5. I wish I knew how urgent our reform movement would be in the face of pervasive AI, so that and that we would have accelerated our growth even faster than we did.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I grew up on the saying that “The Truth is The Best Lie.” Many of the positions that I point out are uncomfortable and controversial — but the underlying data is crystal clear. Rather than sugarcoating the shortcomings of educational institutions, making excuses for bad behavior, and enabling the lack of leadership at these institutions, I call out the things as the evidence proves them to be.
We are blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
I would want to have lunch with the children of Karen Haight and Jon Huntsman Sr.. Karen passed away this summer, and one of my greatest regrets is not telling her what a profound impact one of her stories had on my life.
I met her just once, thirty years ago, at the groundbreaking of a new building at UPenn that she and her husband donated $100M to build, which was a gargantuan gift at the time. As Jon Huntsman was very busy (the building would carry his name), I walked up to her and thanked her for her generosity. She replied, “what generosity? We can afford to make a $100M gift.”
She then told me what generosity meant to her. When she had only two children and her husband was working at a factory, his paycheck couldn’t cover their expenses, then one of his coworkers died and left a widow with three children destitute. Before he would come home with his paycheck, he would cash it and give half to the widow. Karen fought with her husband Jon, telling him that they needed the money, to which he replied that the widow needed it far more than they did. “If Jon didn’t do that back then,” she told me, “this building wouldn’t be funded today.” That day I went back to my apartment to donate to a charity I believed in.
Ever since, I have always given more than I could rationally afford. In many ways, my pursuit of a purposeful life was inspired by that short conversation. I want Karen and Jon’s family to know what a profound impact they have had on me.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
The best method is to follow Minerva Project on LinkedIn and visit our work at www.minervaproject.com, www.minervasystem.com, and www.mbacc.com .
Thank you so much for sharing these insights!
Education Revolution: Ben Nelson Of Minerva Project On Innovative Approaches That Are Transforming… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.