Four converging trends are undermining land-based campuses as the preeminent source of knowledge acquisition and certification. The emergence of the learning sciences, the wikification of knowledge, the unbundling of faculty roles, and the migration of learning online are driving fundamental institutional change toward location-independent alternatives. Conventional assumptions about the necessity for, and superiority of, location-dependent teaching and learning at colleges and universities are losing their plausibility as learning is transformed by more effective alternatives offering more precise and scientifically grounded optimizations embedded in Web-based course architectures. The combination of precision education, open courseware, the greater specialization of teaching roles, and the expansion of Web-enabled learning are all implicated in a process leading toward the decentralization of institutional practices supporting land-based learning. These trends are not only disruptive but are serving to displace post-secondary institutions in their traditional role as the primary providers of knowledge and academic credentials.