The Star Trek University is a scenario built on the technological utopia of abundance. A qualification in this scenario is focused on preparing people to make contributions to society where, despite the absence of money, people still have meaningful jobs that are necessary for the functioning of society. These qualifications are offered through a social infrastructure with a strong public good focus: fees, student finance and debt, and commercial profit have ceased to be anything other than historical curiosities.
Technology pervades every aspect of lives. The educational experience is thus itself a technologically mediated one. The presence of ubiquitous networks, strong artificial intelligence, vast databases of human knowledge, and immersive holographic augmented reality mean that a student can experience a rich and authentic learning environment. The pedagogy of abundance will make the problems faced by mathematics teachers when the calculator became cheap simple in comparison.
Despite its abundance, the Star Trek society is regulated, efficient and responsible. The structured nature of the Star Trek society suggests that qualifications will be highly structured and hierarchical, informed by the types of individual assessments and tailored development programmes that characterise the training of young sports people today. The role of education will be in deepening the creative and critical skills of people and helping them focus their energies and productivity in socially meaningful ways.