Between efficiency and legitimacy: Reinventing the university in an age of acceleration

University is not simply going through a crisis. It is entering a new phase of redefinition. In an environment shaped by technological acceleration, cultural transformation, and market pressure, the question is no longer how to adapt, but what role it wants to play.

This debate has recently been approached from different angles — from structural analyses of the challenges facing higher education systems to philosophical critiques of the role of business schools. Yet beyond these perspectives, a common concern emerges: the gradual erosion of higher education’s legitimacy.

In a discussion with Esade Magistri, the articles Quo Vadis, Higher Education? by the Jesuit professors Alberto Núñez and Josep F. Mària, and Magistra veritas by David Murillo, provided an intellectual framework to address a question that runs through the entire conversation: we are not facing a cyclical crisis of the university, but a redefinition of its legitimacy in a context of technological, geopolitical and cultural acceleration.

Beyond disruption: a question of purpose

The diagnosis is clear. Núñez and Mària argue that universities face simultaneous tensions on three levels: supply, increasingly saturated and shaped by rankings and platforms; demand, influenced by demographic shifts and new ways of engaging with knowledge; and the educational process itself, whose distinctive value is becoming harder to define.

At the same time, Murillo accepts this diagnosis but adds another layer of tension specific to business schools. Their proximity to the market makes them particularly vulnerable to a logic of efficiency that, taken to extremes, can hollow out their academic mission. When education is measured solely in terms of productivity, it risks becoming just another service.

Yet reducing the problem to external pressures would be too simplistic. The deeper question is not only how universities respond, but from what standpoint they do so.

The risk of looking back instead of forward

There is a natural temptation: to idealize the past. To imagine the university as a guardian of knowledge and holistic education, detached from power dynamics or market forces.

However, this view overlooks a more complex historical reality. Universities have never been fully autonomous. They have always responded — and continue to respond — to political, economic and cultural centers of influence.

What is different today is not the existence of external pressure, but its intensity and speed. The relevant question, therefore, is not how to return to an idealized model, but how to exercise agency within a hybrid ecosystem where market forces, technology and educational purpose coexist.

Rethinking efficiency without reductionism

One of the most contentious issues is the role of efficiency. Critiquing its dominance is necessary, as Murillo suggests — but rejecting it entirely would be a mistake.

A university that ignores efficiency risks becoming inaccessible, slow and irrelevant. The problem is not efficiency itself, but a reductionist view of the human being as a mere optimizer.

Rethinking efficiency means understanding it not as the maximization of outputs, but as the alignment between purpose, resources and transformation. The goal is not to produce more, but to generate meaningful impact. Business schools should not abandon efficiency — they should redefine it.

From knowledge monopoly to meaning-making

Another structural shift is the loss of the university’s monopoly over knowledge. Today, knowledge is generated across multiple spaces: companies, digital communities, think tanks and distributed networks.

In this context, universities can no longer claim exclusive epistemic authority. Their value no longer lies in guarding knowledge, but in something more complex: organizing it, validating it, connecting it and subjecting it to critical scrutiny.

Rather than guardians, academics are increasingly called to become architects of meaning. And that requires a new form of authority — one based not on hierarchy, but on credibility.

The student: neither customer nor subject

This transformation also reshapes the role of the student. The traditional dichotomy between customer and learner is no longer sufficient.

Today’s student is simultaneously an investor, a user, a member of a community and a future ambassador of the institution. Ignoring any of these dimensions weakens the educational relationship, as would reducing the student to a mere “customer.”

The key is not to reject market logic, but to integrate it into a broader framework of shared responsibility. Universities cannot treat students as sovereign consumers — nor as passive recipients.

Legitimacy in an age of skepticism

Ultimately, these tensions converge on an uncomfortable but necessary question: why should society continue to grant universities a special status?

The answer can no longer rely solely on research or teaching. In a competitive and skeptical environment, legitimacy will need to be built on three pillars: real impact on complex problems, institutional coherence and clear differentiation from technological and private alternatives.

At the same time, appeals to the common good — though essential — require a renewed sense of humility. In polarized contexts, moralizing discourse can undermine credibility. Defending critical thinking also means safeguarding spaces for genuine disagreement.

From guardians to orchestrators

Perhaps the most profound shift is conceptual. Universities should not aim to recover a lost monopoly, but to redefine their role within a distributed ecosystem.

This implies moving from being guardians of knowledge to becoming orchestrators: institutions capable of integrating diverse forms of knowledge, connecting actors and generating shared frameworks of meaning.

In this new role, several elements are key: a holistic vision of the human being, purposeful use of technology, research connected to real-world challenges, learning experiences that are difficult to replicate, and a clear institutional identity.

Business schools: between exposure and opportunity

Business schools occupy a particularly delicate position. Their proximity to the market exposes them more than other institutions to commodification.

But that same proximity gives them a unique opportunity to rethink the social contract of business and its role in society.

If they limit themselves to teaching tools, their future is uncertain. If, instead, they develop judgment, character and the ability to navigate complex systems, their relevance will be hard to replace.

Ultimately, the question is not whether we are facing a paradigm shift. That is already clear.

The real question is whether universities — and business schools in particular — want to simply adapt to this change, or aspire to lead it.