In March of this year, EdSurge published my article describing the nearly 400-year history of higher education in the United States, how that past shapes the way the country views universities today, and why. microcredentials, while critical to the future of the American economy, are causing a dilemma for academia. Since then, I have enjoyed serving on various panels such as those with the Colorado Business Roundtable discussing the future of higher education and its intersection with economic and labor needs.
Several critical issues have emerged from these conversations that create burdens for workforce partners and higher education institutions. For one thing, agreement on the purpose of higher education is fragmented. In 2019, Brandon Busteed wrote an article for Forbes which beautifully describes what I have witnessed in these discussions. Busteed described a “decidedly false dichotomy” in which some maintain that higher education is about preparing a person for work versus, more broadly, preparing a person for success. While I have enjoyed the dialogue, the fact is that this intellectual discourse is taking place among some of the most privileged and well-credentialed people in society.
Another critical issue emerges in these conversations: the need for more decision-makers to understand that America’s population growth has increased. almost flat. It is vital to keep in mind that this trend is NOT a temporary problem, but rather the result of a constant decline, and that higher education as a whole must address it. One implication is a recent prediction by the Bureau of Labor Statistics that the labor force participation rate may fall from 62.2 percent in 2022 to 60.4 percent in 2032. A second implication is the absence of a sufficient number of workers in Professions such as health services, commerce and hospitality. According to the United States Chamber of Commerce, as of June 2023, the national labor force participation rate was 0.7 percentage points below pre-pandemic levels. That equates to 1.9 million workers who have left the workforce since the start of the pandemic in early spring 2020.
The lack of an available and prepared workforce in the United States adds unnecessary fuel to the fire of poverty that burns uncontrollably in our communities and that leaders do not seem to feel the urgency to extinguish. According to the US Census Bureau Poverty in the United States: 2022 report, the supplementary poverty measure (SPM) in 2022 was 12.4 percent. This 4.6 percentage point increase from 2021 represents the first increase in SPM’s overall poverty rate since 2010. Additionally, SPM’s child poverty rate more than doubled, from 5.2 percent in 2021 to 12.4 percent in 2022.
To address the hunger of our children and the poverty of our communities, our education system must be redesigned to eliminate the boundaries between high school, college, and careers so that more Americans can train and secure sustaining employment.
In 2021, Jobs for the Future outlined a path towards realizing that revolution in The big blur report, which advocates a radical restructuring of education for grades 11 to 14 by blurring the arbitrary dividing line between high school and college. Ideas to achieve this include courses and work experiences for students designed for career preparation. Joel Vargas, contributing author of this report and JFF executive, spoke at length about his personal life story and why he served as an ambassador for educational redesign at my Discovering your mission podcast earlier this year. He said that “we have to change the (educational) systems that students experience, because it is quite obvious that our systems are designed to work against students as a whole.”
As a member of JFF’s Policy Leadership Trust, the Community College of Aurora (where I am president) has served as a national leader in working to apply higher education to advance social and economic mobility in today’s society by aligning the learning outcomes of students directly with labor needs. Such goals are achieved when the institution understands its responsibility in the fight to eliminate poverty and support equitable educational achievement by providing our students with key skills that are relevant and transferable across industries.
This commitment to student success is what students seek most, according to the Strada Education Foundation. In its most recent nationally representative study of more than 3,200 people who completed bachelor’s degrees since 2002, Strada found that graduates who reported having developed key skills during college they earned $8,700 more in their first year after graduating than their peers who reported lower levels of skill development during college. As Americans’ confidence in higher education has fallen and its students have accumulated more than $1.7 trillion in student debt, institutions must focus on providing the critical tools to thrive in a skills-based economy.
This year, Aurora Community College hosted U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, the Departments of Transportation, Energy, Commerce and Labor, along with several national, state and local officials for the Biden-Harris Administration’s National Unlocking Roads Summit. series, which focused on helping young Americans get into high-paying jobs. a component, How to unlock professional success, is an interagency initiative that reimagines how our nation’s high schools prepare all students to thrive in their future careers. Guided by the four keys of dual enrollment, work-based learning, work credentials, and career guidance and guidance, this initiative, in collaboration with JFF, aims to evangelize the need to revolutionize the American higher education and education systems.
America’s future depends on our ability as a community of educators, labor partners, government agencies, and policymakers to work together to develop seamless academic and career paths for more students. Together, we can unlock upward social and economic mobility for our youth and working adults. Failure is not an option; America depends on us.
