Employer-Based College Programs Aren’t Just Enduring, They’re Growing

And who will replace Education Secretary Betsy Devos?

Conventional wisdom is that higher education is countercyclical. During recessions and periods of high unemployment, people use the time to go back to school and upskill.

Another article of faith is that—even as adults go back to school—employers will cut back on their education programs in recessions. As Mary Alice McCarthy, director of the Center on Education and Skills at the left-of-center think tank New America, told Inside Higher Ed, benefits get cut when times are tough.

Which is why it’s noteworthy that that isn’t happening right now. Against a backdrop of historic unemployment and high uncertainty for America’s employers, there’s been renewed interest and investment in education and upskilling. Flagship publications like Inside Higher Ed have picked up on the trend: Savvy and forward-thinking employers are doubling down on education right now because it’s a strategic move with a clear return on investment.

In my latest piece for Forbes, I tackled the trend to show why there are many facets of the conventional wisdom that need updating.

For example, employers paying for education programs isn’t just to bolster employee retention or improve hiring. It’s also to help employers reskill their workforce. Walmart, which is opening health-care supercenters across the country, provides a perfect case study. With over 4,000 stores in the United States, staffing these supercenters with qualified health professionals will be critical, which is why it has partnered with schools like Penn Foster to prepare its retail workers for optician and pharmacy technician roles.

Or consider this. In the wake of Covid-19, companies across every industry made updates to their technology and processes. That meant an acceleration of digitization and automation—efforts we knew would happen, but that now occurred faster.

That in turn has meant needing to upgrade talent. Given that technical talent is scarce—and now even more in-demand—it’s also expensive. For organizations, hiring new people wasn’t a viable solution by itself. Upskilling and reskilling their workforces for this digital world is an imperative. 

Read more about why “Employer-Based College Programs Aren’t Just Enduring, They’re Growing” at Forbes.

Rethinking Regional Public Universities

As we think about reskilling working adult learners, one of the big false dichotomies that exists is that we have to choose between training programs or higher education programs. The reality is that higher education institutions have been in the world of training for decades.

Regional public universities have straddled this world. They are also the workhorses of the higher ed systems of many states.

Overall, the 400-plus regional public universities across the U.S. educate some 40% of all American undergraduates. But often they are stuck in the middle between better known public flagship universities and community colleges.

After years of declining state revenues, and in some states declining enrollments, many have arrived at a crossroads. In our latest episode of Future U, Dan Greenstein, the chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, talks about his plan to remake the Pennsylvania system, as well as why similar institutions elsewhere need to recapture their affordability edge.

Education and the Election

Elections have consequences. In education that will mean a new Secretary of Education. In the latest episode of Class Disrupted, Diane Tavenner and I take up the question of who should replace Secretary Betsy Devos by starting with the question of what the US Department of Education actually does. The answer might surprise you.

Plus, in this piece for Forbes, I detail some insights from DonorsChoose around what students need to make progress right now in their learning and the trends in teacher requests on the site. Check it out at “Listening To Teacher Demand: Tracking K–12 Student Needs During Covid-19.”

As always, thanks for reading, listening, and writing.