preparing

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By — Gretchen Frazee

Gretchen Frazee is a producer for the PBS NewsHour.

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Left:Left: Students walk between classes on the Locust Walk on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Photo by Charles Mostoller/Reuters

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4-year degree

college

future of work

universities

“What we need to start doing is…to create an ecosystem where people are constantly being educated.”

How colleges are preparing students for jobs that don’t exist yet

Dec 6, 2018 3:58 PM EDT

Eighty-five percent of the jobs that today’s students will do in 2030

don’t exist yet, the Institute for the Future has predicted.

That might seem like a high number to reach in only 12 years. But

think about the now-mainstream careers that did not exist just a

handful of years ago: drone operator, social media manager, app

developer and cloud computing engineer, among others.

Even if that 85 percent is ultimately smaller, the number begs an

important question about how the workforce is preparing for the

future, starting in the classroom. What role should colleges and

universities play in preparing students for a workplace that is

constantly changing?

Educational institutions are trying to answer that question, largely

by adapting their programs to better suit an ever-shifting work

landscape. Here are some of the approaches they’re taking.

Throw out the idea that you have to match degrees with jobs

There’s often a disconnect between what you learned in college and

what you do in the workforce. In 2013, a Federal Reserve researcher

found that 27 percent of college graduates were working in a job that

matched their college major. Thirty-eight percent were in jobs that

did not require a college degree at all.

That is not to say that college degrees — and the knowledge that

comes with them — are not worth earning. By 2020, 65 percent of all

jobs will require at least some education beyond a high school

degree, according to Georgetown University’s Center on Education

the Workforce. That’s true despite several companies, including

Google and Apple, that recently announced they will no longer

require a degree.

Many colleges have grappled with whether to focus on cutting-edge

technical skills in their programs.

In the 1800s and earlier, colleges were largely focused on teaching a

broad swath of liberal arts, including ancient languages, religion and

philosophy. That tradition continued even as colleges shifted at the

turn of the century toward more specialized and vocational

education.

The popularity of career and technical education started to decline

in the 1980s, but there has been an increase in attention to and

funding for skills-based programs in the past decade, according to

the Brookings Institution. The number of post secondary institutions

that offered vocational education programs increased 16 percent

between 2003 and 2015.

Today, about 12.5 million high school and college students are

enrolled in at least one career and technical education course,

according to the nonprofit Advance CTE.

The problem is many of those programs only train people for the jobs

that exist today. With the rapid rate of change, the skills they teach

could be obsolete within several years.

While some universities are embracing the technical skills model,

others see an opportunity to stand out as institutions that teach

students “soft skills,” such as problem solving or the ability to work

in a team, that are useful not only for the jobs of today, but for

whatever the future might bring.

And in a world where not only universities, but private companies,

are getting into the education game, the pressure to keep up is

stronger than ever.

Stop thinking about higher education as a four-year, linear journey

Those who study the intersection of education and the future of work

say the four-year learning model needs to be rethought in a big way.

They say education can no longer be seen as something that stops

when a person graduates from college.

Jonathan Blake Huer, an education professional who consults with

colleges to address the needs of the changing workforce, said he

imagines a world where college is not four consecutive years at all.

“I would prefer if the education system is more fluid so [students]

can go in and out of it,” he said.

If students could take a year or two of school, get a job, and then

return to school a few years later, Huer said, the education system

would offer true life-long learning and better adapt to changing

technology.

In the meantime, online

programs are filling in the

gaps. Universities are

offering more online

courses. Private companies

like LinkedIn Learning,

which absorbed

Lynda.com, are also

teaching people new skills

through online videos via

online subscription services.

So the solution to training people for the jobs of the future? Don’t, at

least to a point.

“We can’t possibly prepare people for all of the jobs that are ahead,”

Brandon Busteed, the president of Kaplan University Partners, which

supports U.S. colleges and universities adapt to the changing world.

“What we need to start doing is creating the scaffolding to create an

ecosystem where people are constantly being educated and retooled

to stay relevant in their jobs.”

The good news, Busteed said, is that our education systems have

been forced to adapt to major disruptions in the past, and it’s likely

they will figure out how to do so again. Some universities are already

trying to make the shift.

Find ways to fill the skill gap

Fewer employers are willing to train people on the job than they were

50 years ago; a government report found employer-sponsored

training fell 42 percent between 1996 and 2008, largely as part of an

effort to cut costs.

Internships, which many colleges already offer, appear to be the new

kind of training program, though Busteed said universities could do

more to integrate them part of a student’s graduation requirements.

WATCH: Automation threatens jobs. Can education create new ones?

At the University of Utah, the new Degree Plus program seeks to fill

the job skills gap. It offers eight-week courses intended as an add-

on to a student’s main degree. The courses include data analysis,

web design and digital marketing, all taught by industry

professionals.

The goal “was to take a foundational degree and recognize that if you

pair it with something more concentrated and technical, it can open

up more opportunities,” said Andrea Miller, the University of Utah’s

director of professional education.

It is additional work, and an additional cost, but Miller said many

students find the added value is worth it. Anthropology majors could

benefit from understanding data analysis, for example. Students

studying political science could see value in understanding content

management or marketing, giving them a leg up when looking for

jobs or getting a promotion a few years down the road.

The model is similar to “badge” programs, which aim to give

students a certificate showing they know a skill that employers

might find useful.

As the job market changes, the University of Utah also plans to

eliminate and add courses more frequently.

That rapid-response mentality is easier done in a supplemental

program like Degree Plus than it is in more established yearslong

programs taught by professors, who offer a deep base of knowledge

but aren’t necessarily focused on workplace practices.

Making the classroom more like the office

Other institutions are trying to mimic the workplace within the

traditional classroom.

Several public colleges have partnered with private companies, like

the software company Adobe, to integrate their products into the

classroom.

Professors at schools who partner with the company are encouraged

to use the product for atypical assignments, like reinterpreting

poems using video. Students at the University of Central Florida have

used the software to design 3D-printed limbs.

“These colleges are teaching digital communication and creative

problem solving with assignments that ask students to understand

problems, find solutions and then take action,” said Tacy Trowbridge,

head of Adobe’s global education programs.

The idea is that students learn how to create a project that can be

used in the real world, drawing on the skills a student would need in

a business setting rather than those they’d use for taking a test. They

also learn the “soft skills” that employers say are increasingly

difficult to find in a job candidate.

The University of California, Berkeley, is another school that is trying

to foster student-driven pursuits, which may not have a traditional,

professional outlet. Students there can design their own courses,

such as “Blockchain Fundamentals” and “Impact of AI,” a class that

explores “various economic, social, and ethical challenges facing AI.”

In addition to allowing students to study subjects not taught in a

standard university class, the DeCal, short for Democratic Education

at Cal, program is designed to foster creativity–a skill that could be

valuable in any job market.

“We’re not just about preparing kids for work,” said Jenn Stringer, the

chief academic technology officer at the University of California,

Berkeley. “We hope we are preparing them to have a huge impact on

society in some way.”

That way, she said, they will not only be prepared for whatever the

job market looks like in 10, 20 or 50 years. They will be the ones

shaping it.

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An instructor at Harper College in Palatine, Illinois, shows students a welding technique. Career and technical education has seen a resurgence in the last decade after declining in the 1980s. Photo by John Gress/Reuters

Students attend the University of California, Berkeley’s electrical engineering and computer sciences career fair in Berkeley, California, on September 5, 2018. University leaders say they are not only training students for jobs, but to have a larger impact on the world. Photo by Ann Saphir/Reuters

By — Gretchen Frazee

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