What's the Value of College? And Why Is One College Closing Every Week?
When people enroll in college, “[They] want the promise they can become anything and the certainty they'll become something.”
That’s according to Dave Clayton, Strada Education’s Senior Vice President. He made the observation on the latest episode of Future U, “Measuring the True Value of Community Colleges.”
It’s a powerful sentiment that feels right. That, along with this finding from a research report that Strada published in September 2023—that students who were making at least $48,000 after their community college experience valued that experience much higher than those who were below that $48,000 threshold, but making significantly more than $48,000 didn’t move the needle—made me wonder something.
Is a decent job that pays at least $48,000 table stakes for a student graduating from college? Here were my reflections on the show:
“All of this brings to mind a different model for me from the Jobs-to-be-Done canon, if you will, which is the Kano model. … In essence what the Kano model says, and I'll try to do my best summary, it says that within a given experience or product or Job to Be Done, there are three types of features: basic, performance and excitement. Basic features are the things that they have to be there or else the customer is completely dissatisfied. So Jeff, think seat belts in cars. If you don't have seat belts in cars, the car is a non-starter these days. But it turns out that you as the car manufacturer, you don't get extra points from customers for improving the seat belt.
Now the second category, those performance features, that's basically where customer satisfaction, it rises for basically every dollar that you invest in improving them. Then you have excitement features, and those are cherries on top, unexpected surprises that delight customers, [but the] customer doesn't ding you for not having them. But you get a lot of extra excitement when you unexpectedly deliver them. To go back to the community colleges, I guess I was hearing the conversation [with Dave] and I was wondering, ‘is a decent job that pays at least $48,000, is that table stakes?’ In other words, is that one of those basic features for individuals? If you don't get that out of your college experience, you're profoundly dissatisfied. You're basically saying that was not worth it, in other words. But interestingly, maybe as the college, you don't get a ton of benefit from improving beyond it, but you better deliver it as a baseline at least.”
I went on to observe that these expectations change over time. In other words, the Kano model is dynamic. What at one point is a performance feature—getting a good job—is likely to become, over time, a basic feature.
Check out the whole episode with our interview with Dave Clayton here and let me and Jeff Selingo know what you think.
AI is Officially Here, There, Everywhere, and Nowhere
It’s no secret that artificial intelligence (AI) is on the minds of lots of educators (especially I suspect after yesterday’s announcement from OpenAI of GPT-4o, which GSV’s
covered masterfully here (I’ll cross-post it as well).It’s also no secret that when it comes to digital technology, educators and school systems haven’t historically been fleet of foot. But artificial intelligence is partially bucking the trend. Many teachers are embracing it, even as school systems follow form and are moving slowly, or barely at all.
What’s the best way forward? That’s the topic of my latest “What’s Next” column for Education Next, which you can read here. My big takeaway beyond what not to do? Don’t focus on AI. Focus on the problems that matter—and see where AI can help.
Podcasting for Learning—And An Antidote to Screen Time?
In my latest for Forbes,
and I teamed up to take the recent interview I did with Guy Raz and distill some lessons on the potential of podcasts for learning.With the flurries of worries over smartphones, social media and student mental health intensified by the recent release of
’s The Anxious Generation, there’s no question that society is in search of solutions.We say yes to more free play for children. Yes to less social media. But given that kids are unlikely to completely leave technology behind, podcasts can also be among the benevolent digital alternatives we need.
Check out the full piece in Forbes here.
Colleges are Closing at a Rate of One Per Week
So I could say I told you so, but it won’t help the students getting burned. Here’s ace reporter Jon Marcus with the story for the Hechinger Report: “Colleges are now closing at a pace of one a week. What happens to the students?”
As the story notes, this is a trend. College closures are up from a rate of two per month last year, which itself is high. And there are plenty of mergers taking place as well.
As a recent editorial by the Boston Globe noted: “For demographic and cultural reasons, many colleges are seeing declining enrollment. Reversing this trend must include efforts to lower prices. This will likely mean cutting expenses.”
As I was quoted in that editorial: “Parents are really focused on return on investment, making sure this makes financial sense.” See my above musings on colleges and the Kano model.
For far too many families and students right now, college doesn’t make financial sense. Fortunately, there are some more helpful resources out there. Check out, for example, this new resource from
and : Is College Worth It?They calculated the return on investment for over 40,000 college degrees. And they released this accompanying report distilling some of the findings.
Hope that resource proves helpful. And as always, thanks for reading, writing, and listening.