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Harvard Business Review
Why Skills Training Can’t Replace Higher Education
George D. Kuh
October 9, 2019
Much of the current media-reported posturing by policy makers and
pundits about the failure of U.S. colleges and universities to
adequately prepare people for the 21st workplace is either ill informed
or misguided, in my opinion.
One of the dominant narratives in the media is that we need to produce
more workers now who can do whatever is needed now, using short-term
postsecondary certification programs. The focus is typically on
“vocational” skills, contrasted with what too often are characterized
as relatively useless liberal education outcomes, including knowledge
of world history and cultures and other “indulgences” such as crafting
understandable prose and judging the veracity and utility of
information.
To make it easier for employers to identify competent workers, a litany
of badges, certificates, and the like will purportedly signal
proficiency. In some yet-to-be-demonstrated manner, these proxies will
then be stacked and sewn together by a trusted entity to warrant
conferral of what traditionally has been considered a college degree.
Along the way, it’s assumed that learners of any age will independently
bring coherence to and cultivate depth of understanding from these
various experiences.
Another narrative is framed by a chorus of CEOs and managers who bemoan
that too many job applicants with associate and baccalaureate degrees
cannot write coherent paragraphs, clearly explain complex problems, or
work effectively with people who differ from themselves. And this is
after several years of postsecondary study, not the few weeks or months
needed to earn a badge. At the same time, many business leaders
say that they prefer candidates who not only can do today’s work, but
who will be able to continue to learn on their own in real time to do
tomorrow’s work — jobs that have not yet been invented. Is there a
badge or certificate to certify skills for jobs that haven’t even been
invented yet?!
Of course, short-term vocational skills-based programs are critically
important and well suited for many people. This has always been true
and will continue to be so. But is this an acceptable policy choice for
addressing the demands of the 21st century workplace and fixing the
shortcomings of American higher education at this point?
No, and here’s why.
We’ve known for many decades that there are no short cuts to
cultivating the habits of the mind and heart that, over time, enable
people to deepen their learning, develop resilience, transfer
information into action, and creatively juggle and evaluate competing
ideas and approaches. These are the kinds of proficiencies and
dispositions needed to discover alternative responses to challenges
presented by the changing nature of today’s jobs or for work not yet
invented. Workplaces, societal institutions, and the world order are
only going to get more complicated and challenging to navigate and
manage, increasing the need for people with accumulated wisdom,
interpersonal and practical competence, and more than a splash of
critical thinking, analytical reasoning, and altruism.
Intentionally shortening and fragmenting educational and personal
development in the name of bolstering economic productivity now is
shortsighted and does a catastrophic disservice to individuals, our
national prosperity, and the long-term well-being of a civil,
democratic society. What’s also troubling is the likelihood that
learners from historically underserved groups — low income and ethnic
minorities, for example — will be disproportionately represented among
(or maybe even tracked into) short-term training programs. Students
from these groups made up the majority of those who were duped by the
misleading ROI promises of more than a few costly for-profit
institutions, such as Corinthian Colleges, ITT Technical Institutes,
and Education Corporation for America.
There is no way to know for sure, but I suspect that many of those
vigorously proposing short term vocational education steer their own
children toward baccalaureate-granting colleges or universities.
Attending such schools increases the odds that students will have to
broaden their perspectives, read and write a fair amount, and devote
significant effort over an extended period of time pondering difficult
questions and generating alternative solutions to complicated problems
— the stuff of which the future will be made.
We need business leaders to speak often and consistently with one voice
about the perils of trying to do too much too fast on the cheap in
education. The discourse about what the country needs from its
postsecondary system needs re-balancing and grounding in what
clear-minded captains of industry have learned from experience and what
the educational research shows matters to preparing people for a
self-sufficient, civically responsible, and personally satisfying life.
Granted, there is much room for improvement in American higher
education. However, when a college or university intentionally designs
and induces students to participate in high-impact learning activities
inside and outside the classroom, the outcomes are much better
contrasted with students who do not have such experiences. The benefits
of participating in high-impact practices such as writing intensive
courses, undergraduate research, community service projects and
internships are especially promising for historically underserved
students who will make up a large fraction of tomorrow’s workers and
community leaders. Unfortunately, too few students participate in these
activities, a problem that institutions such as California State
University Dominguez Hills, Worcester Polytechnic Institute,
Springfield College and many others are addressing by modifying
curricular offerings to require students to do them.
Abbreviating postsecondary preparation programs may well reduce
short-term costs for students, institutions, and many employers.
However, privileging short-term job training over demanding educational
experiences associated with high-levels of intellectual, personal, and
social development — a foundation for continuous life-long learning —
is a bad idea for individuals, for the long-term vitality of the
American economy, and for our democracy.
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