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Deep Dive
How the skills gap is changing the degree path
To address demand for job-specific training, these colleges are giving
students more ways to gain work experience and short-term credentials
while in school.
Mikhail Zinshteyn
Feb. 17, 2020
Pressed to respond to students' concerns about the rising cost of
higher education and their sometimes-foggy understanding of how their
learning translates into jobs, some colleges are reshaping the degree
pathway.
Their motivation for doing so is not only internal. Nontraditional
education providers are proving to be stiff competition. Bootcamps
prepare information technology and web-development workers in months,
not years. And multinational firms now produce their own certificates
that promise to be gateways to meaningful entry-level work.
"While colleges don't need to become vocational programs, they will
need to find new ways to meet the needs of students and the economy or
they risk losing out on that huge future market for lifelong learning,"
David Soo, chief of staff at Jobs for the Future, a nonprofit that
advocates for better links between education and the workforce, told
Education Dive in an email. It partnered with Google to offer its IT
certificate at 100 community colleges.
Colleges are approaching this challenge in a variety of ways. Some are
strengthening transfer pathways between two- and four-year schools,
while others are bringing industry-recognized credentials into the
curriculum sooner than they have in the past. In some cases, they are
putting more weight on training experiences.
The University System of Georgia, for example, is creating a new type
of two-year degree that requires students to take internships and
upper-division courses — demands typically not found in associate
degrees. Georgia is calling these "nexus" degrees.
"It's really a unique opportunity for Georgians to be able to have sort
of a crucial training that takes them straight into the entry-level
position in a high-needs field," said Tristan Denley, chief academic
officer at the University System of Georgia, in an interview with
Education Dive. He called it a "much more nimble kind of credential."
So far, two nexus degree programs are live, both at Columbus State
University. Each prepares students for industries that have a major
footprint in the state. One covers cybersecurity in financial
technology and is meant to satisfy demand from companies in the region
that together process 70% of the nation's payment card transactions.
The other, in film production, intends to feed a local economy that is a top destination for shooting movies.
Because the degrees require 12 units of upper-division courses and at
least six through an internship, most of the 60 units needed to earn
one come from general education. That can clear the way for a student
pursuing a bachelor's, who must take general education courses anyway,
to take an extra 18 credits to earn a certificate. That's roughly the
equivalent of a semester and a summer course.
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