As Universities Evolve - NYTimes.com "The Disrupters" (Education Life section, Nov. 3) brings to the fore an important tension in the transformation of higher education. Some of the innovations described - like online education and competency-based learning - are taking place both within and beyond traditional universities. They can help refit such institutions for new demands. Others - like for-profit, tuition-free and virtual institutions - may not just repair but in fact replace parts of higher education. For some institutions and some students, repair may be a valid strategy. For others, replacement will be the name of the game. Today's colleges and universities evolved to meet the needs of a national, analog, industrial economy. Now higher education must transform itself rapidly to adapt to a global, digital, knowledge economy. As we grapple with the changes our colleges and universities require and learn to make them more accessible, policy makers and the public would do well to study what to repair, what to replace and how much to invest in each option. The writer, president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, is a former president of Teachers College, Columbia University.