In my 25 years in and around higher education, I have always subscribed to the “fix and disrupt” school of innovation. With this mindset, I try not to wring my hands at the fact that millions fewer learners are enrolling in college now than in 2010 — the disruption is forcing higher education to innovate.
The latest numbers show that enrollment is starting to recover, but the real growth areas are not for four-year degrees. More than 2.4 million students came to college last fall for certificates or “nondegree” credentials, part of a shift in consumer and employer demand for “just-in-time” learning. Plus, 1.6 million high school students signed up for classes to get a jump on or skip the degree gauntlet. Learners are asking for new models even before those models are well understood, well publicized, well-funded or well evaluated.
I’ve spent the last decade speaking with learners who have broken out of the traditional four-year college route, and their work-arounds presage the future. Consider the story of Patrick, who used the industry certifications he earned in high school to catapult himself to a six-figure salary by age 23, without college. Patrick had not seen himself as college material and didn’t even get into the one university to which he applied.
Or consider 50-year-old single mom Crystal, who always wanted to be a teacher, but life got in the way. She found Reach University, a national nonprofit college focused on apprenticeships, which fast-tracked her teaching credential while she worked in her job as a teacher’s aide. She cried on our Zoom call because she couldn’t believe how lucky she felt.
It is time to expand the definition of college to include more high-quality pathways beyond the four-year degree.
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Employers are finding work-arounds, too. Pinnacol, an old-line insurance company in Colorado, feared the loss of its aging workforce. They’ve found it difficult to recruit insurance underwriters in the TikTok age, so the company turned to apprenticeships, looking for high schoolers to develop as professionals.
And Amazon’s Career Choice has quietly built up the largest “on the side” learning model outside the U.S. military for the 200,000 frontline workers who have signed up in recent years. The company provides free coaching, prepaid college tuition and industry certifications for in-demand careers; the things, arguably, colleges could provide.
These outliers are not banking on the centuries-old model of higher education. They are road testing models that could serve most of us by mid-century. And the question is — shouldn’t colleges respond to the changing consumer habits of how America wants to learn?
My interviews and research led me to a set of design criteria for a great college reset, in which the pathways that helped Patrick and Crystal and Pinnacol and Amazon warehouse workers could be taken by anyone at any time.
As consumers demand more choices, here are five steps colleges can take to meet that demand by mid-century:
1. Embrace a flexible stepladder approach to education. Shorter learning tracks that fit together like Legos allow students to dip in and out of college as they work and build earning power. One hundred community colleges are currently constructing “micro-pathways” in collaboration with their region’s employers, but many of those pathways do not currently qualify for financial aid.
2. Provide students the work experience they need. Employers expect entry-level applicants to have two to three years of experience before they hire them, and I believe a key reason that a majority of Americans now say “college isn’t worth it” is that too many graduates don’t feel prepared for the job market. It should be a college’s job to help students secure career-related experience.
3. Offer the community-building and self-exploration parts of college separately. One of the underappreciated benefits of a college education is how it develops social skills and forges personal and professional bonds. In the age of just-in-time learning, though, many consumers are forgoing the part of college that helps learners build community, get out of their own bubbles, problem-solve together and imagine possibilities. What if colleges could offer that part of the college experience in a semester- or yearlong boot camp? But if these programs are to be expanded, the students that enroll in them should be eligible for financial aid.
4. Embrace a sharing mentality across colleges. Students now expect to shop for different learning bundles from different providers. They might earn a Google IT certificate online, go to a college experience boot camp in person and then gain teacher licensing in an apprenticeship. It should be a badge of honor for colleges to make interoperability between institutions easy, yet many schools deny transfer or AP exam credits and credit for work experience, forcing students to take more classes.
5. Affordability must rule. This trumps them all. The average cost of a four-year degree is $38,000 annually. Having served on the board of a large public institution, I understand that colleges have to absorb rising fixed costs. But also having recently interviewed wavering high school grads around the country, debt is the biggest reason they are turning away. Americans are feeling economically pinched.
Related: Some colleges have an answer for students questioning the value of higher ed: work-based learning
The political environment may now be ripe for Congress and state governments to fund additional options to the college degree, such as certificates, work-based experiences and industry certifications. These should all be accessible using federal financial aid, including Pell Grants, with the evaluation and oversight that only colleges are well poised to provide.
The way we learn and get valued for the professional workplace must come in more flavors. As we head to mid-century and a global skills shakeup, many more paths should be called “college” and gain access to its prestige and government funding.
Kathleen deLaski is a former journalist. She is now a professor focused on education reform. She also cofounded several national nonprofits and is the author of the forthcoming book “Who Needs College Anymore? Imagining a Future Where Degrees Won’t Matter.”
Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.
This story about college pathways was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter. Listen to our higher education podcast.
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In my 25 years in and around higher education, I have always subscribed to the “fix and disrupt” school of innovation. With this mindset, I try not to wring my hands at the fact that millions fewer learners are enrolling in college now than in 2010 — the disruption is forcing higher education to innovate.
The post OPINION: We must acknowledge that students are asking for options beyond the four-year college degree appeared first on The Hechinger Report. Elementary to High School, Higher Education, Opinion, Solutions, Adult learning, Career pathways and economic mobility, College to careers, Higher education affordability, Higher education completion, Technology The Hechinger Report