WorkingNation logo with the tagline of "Covering the Future of Work"
DONATE
Search
Screen-Shot-2017-07-12-at-3.33.58-PM
Tags   
Tags 

Must colleges change to meet workforce demands?

A Georgetown University report says universities can do more to connect students to careers.
By Matt Parke
-

A new report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce said that universities should rethink the value of higher education and how they prepare the next generation of workers.

Short of calling for a complete revolution of the system, the Georgetown Center report advocates new rules to transform the traditional college experience and help schools adapt to the economic pressures presented by the widening skills gap and a looming unemployment crisis.

“Higher education has become a $500 billion computer without an operating system,” said Anthony P. Carnevale, director of the Georgetown Center and lead author of the Career Pathways: Five Ways to Connect College and Careers report.

RELATED STORY: WorkingNation founder and CEO Art Bilger says community colleges offer best solutions for job training.

For the nearly 5,000 universities and colleges in the United States, this is a serious indictment of our traditional notion of the purpose of a college education. The Georgetown Center said that the new economy is “trickier” for students and mid-career workers to navigate and not all schools, majors or degrees are created equal when it comes to the cost and promises of higher education.

No longer, the report said, should students count on landing the well-paying job they want based solely on their choice of major. They need to be better informed on the rate of return their potential career path would provide versus the amount they would owe in student debt.

“Learners and workers need a modern guidance system with clear and comprehensive consumer information that will help them make good college and career decisions,” Carnevale said.

According to the report, this new system requires the creation of a “Learning and Earning Exchange” and with it, increased access to career counseling and skills assessment for the diversified student body.

Infographic- The Georgetown Center

Explaining the earnings gap between majors- for example, a petroleum engineer will make $3.4 million more than someone majoring in early childhood development- will make a difference in connecting undecided students to high-demand careers in the job market. The report noted Indiana’s online database IndianaSkills as an example of an accessible platform for students and employers to this type of information.

The exchange would also explain that college might not be an individual’s best option. A transparent system would show that a typical bachelor’s degree might not be useful or affordable as an IT certification obtained at a technical school. More transparency from colleges in this regard would go toward saving higher education from sliding further into “mediocrity” and making them valuable partners in maintaining a strong economy, the report said.

Keeping local economies productive also requires a steady replenishment of trained workers. The report suggests that states begin to forge more public-private partnerships with the companies in their regions to share data. States like California and Connecticut are pioneering new programs which use jobs data and market analysis to allow colleges to create, discontinue or modify their curricula to better suit their state’s workforce needs.

If students and colleges utilize the data to spend more wisely then this has direct effects on state budgets too. The Georgetown Center said that policymakers can benefit from their ideas because schools could operate more efficiently and soaring costs could be reined in. This in turn allows elected officials to properly allocate resources and support more training programs which keep students (and future taxpayers) living in their states.

Post-secondary education remains the top choice for learners and mid-career workers to gain the skills to enter the new economy. Communities thrive when workers of all skill levels have access to affordable education. Companies are more likely to relocate or stay within regions where they have trained workers to hire. What the Georgetown Center is promoting isn’t going to upend the ivory tower. Their ideas are already in place and working.

To read the entire report: Click Here.

Join the Conversation: What do you think of the suggestions in The Georgetown Center Report? Have your say on our Facebook page.

Related Articles
Get the latest from WorkingNation
DONATE
Terms of Use
Privacy Policy
Our Mission
Contact Us

© Copyright 2024 by Structural Unemployment, LLC dba WorkingNation

Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.

Share Bio