Traditional delivery systems based on semesters and school years will be augmented by many alternative delivery modes. Students will be in and out of higher education institutions throughout their lifetimes. Whatever we thought of as "traditional" students will be a smaller part of the total. Certification or degree granting could well take on new meaning. Industry and other non-traditional institutions could do much of the certification conducted by postsecondary institutions today. The financial investment in postsecondary education will grow dramatically, raising serious questions about control, accountability, assessment, and regulation. In short, learning is becoming less restricted by barriers of time and place; stage of life; and other historic obstacles to postsecondary education. To cite one example, many public and private institutions are offering MBA degrees-online.

Postsecondary education is well on its way to becoming one of the largest enterprises in the United States. We want to make sure it becomes an even more efficient, effective, and equitable enterprise. The first step in changing is to ask the tough questions, including the very basic one: How can the federal government help institutions, students, educators, and all those with a stake in postsecondary education meet the challenges of Learning Without Limits? OPE's leaders conceived the Agenda Project as a way of finding answers to this and other questions.

What became clear through the process is that many factors point to a bigger role for OPE-not in terms of money or control, but primarily in terms of leadership and advocacy. Agenda Project participants described a changing, growing postsecondary education system, one difficult to fathom, let alone navigate. At a minimum, OPE can serve its stakeholders as a doorway to new ideas, partnerships, and practices.

What also became clear is that K-16 should really be considered K-Lifetime, and for the student the path should be seamless. The challenges should come in the classroom, not the finance office. The issues are intertwined and vertically integrated. We can't live in isolation or ivory towers anymore. Kindergarten and college are closer than we thought.

As U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley said in his seventh annual state of American education address, "?I continue to encourage America's higher education community to enter into a sustained dialogue with education reformers at the middle and secondary school levels. The old paradigm of two distinct systems of education going their own way does not fit our modern times."

This fall, a record 53 million students are enrolled in grades K-12.¹⁸ They all must get the message early and often that they can go as far as they want to go with their education. Dennis Smith, the president of the University of Nebraska, recently sent a very clear message. He sent a letter to the parents of every eighth-grader in Nebraska outlining what courses their children need to take to get ready for college. All students should also get philosopher John Dewey's message, "Education is not preparation for life, education is life itself."

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