Can I save a 4th year degree? Not for most learners, I would argue. The 11 generous alternative pathways become secret ones and stars, and the perfect degree seems unrealistic… But why should it be the only product the university sells? And why is American dream not achieved through other university products, other career preparation and adulteration components? “Kathleen Delaski, who needs college now?” (page 166)
For many years, American leaders have adopted the goal that universities should be for everyone. Kathleen Delaski says it’s time for young people to offer different paths to follow to find employee status.
Delaski has spent decades in the field of alternative approaches to workforce development. Her focus is almost automatically on how young people can prepare for work. The bigger question about how college leads to “life living” is largely outside the scope of her book.
Delaski considers traditional universities to be inappropriate for large segments of their population.
I predict that silos between workforce training, university and corporate training will essentially blend into one Edoo training sector, but the umbrella is a street “college” and the degree could be one of many products in an array of learning and training products. (Page 5)
She points out that hello on higher education has been hurt over the past decade, especially due to rising student debt and pandemic turmoil.
In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, a Strada Education Network survey found that an astounding 62 American Perents prefer short-term skill training and Notegreg credentials to their degree programs. (Page 24)
She believes that future workers are identified not by a single degree but by a set of skills known as “skill wallets.”
The New Age is Dawn: The “Skill Fire” Era. And I argue, it is already beginning to challenge our university degree culture… The movement of Skillfires pushes us into the future. We believe that as employers hire more professional workforces without the need for a degree, and ultimately inevitably, the educational environment changes dramatically. (Pages 15-17)
Employers are becoming clergy about the specific skills they want, despite the potential for changes in desired skills.
There is Broucht in the last decade, with the most demand for skills, the most sudden and most widespread change. LinkedIn reports that certain skills in job openings have changed by 25% between 2015 and 2022. And this was before 40% of all working hours were estimated to require new or different tasks and skills over the best of AI for the next decade. (Pages 33-34)
In this environment of rapid change, there is more to it than just skills.
I instruct students to build a sub-verified “start hard skills” using industry accreditations, but find ways to demonstrate “starter-durable skills” in creative thinking, analytical thinking, collaboration, communication, curiosity, resilience and organizational motivation. (Page 54)
Calling these “durable skills” rather than character traits surprised me with the nasty terminology. This is a problem that bothers the book. In this case, this question is more than just meaningful. One argument that university administrators might make is that Studnts builds these personality traits in the process of completing traditional university degrees, and the alternatives proposed by Delaski do not do them effectively.
For alternatives, Delashi lists five different models.
Visible production skills. Verification of “job-enabled” skills. Experience the sample. Micropathway; accepts weaving.
Her terminology is not trivial. Making skills visible means that institutions identify the skills that employers want and identify the skills they want to help them link course outcomes to acquisition of those skills. It examines the skills that are implied in a particular exam, such as a computer network management test or a sub-of to other industry-recognized exams. Experience samples mean combining classroom learning with real work experience. Micropathways are short-term educational experiences that don’t require more than two years of university commitment before fitting or returning to work. “Weaving” is a long-term commitment to moving between the classroom and the workplace.
Fortunately, Delashi does not relay the theory of articulating these models. Her book is dominated by people and program descriptions showing how they actually work.
Still, we have a paradox embodied in what Delaski calls “competing stories.”
Story 1: Colleges aren’t worth it, they become affordable and dangerous. Story 2: 72% of “good jobs” require university. (Page 134)
The second story can be used to justify “university for everyone.” However, the fact that nearly half of all students who started college failed to graduate supports the first story.
“We thought that the university was acknowledged that it was all suitable for the most capable and wealthy studs.
I thought all of the universities were acknowledged that they were suitable for the most capable and wealthy studs. Who should attend among the rest? She suggests focusing on four groups.
Class Transporter; Legality Label Seeker. Degree and Licensed Worker. A longing for admiration. (Page 146)
Again, her term SEMS opaque. The transporters of the class are people from outside the middle class who may benefit from the cultural learning that can be acquired at university. Legality seekers are people who believe that in the sum of their lives, they will encounter employers who want to see a university degree. Degrees and licensed workers are those who need advanced degrees to acquire the desired profession of INSO. And the people I admire are young people who want to be part of the university community, with experience and lifelong friendships.
For more information about these topics, see
These intangible reasons to pay attention to the university, except for degrees and licensed workers. Alternative models for acquiring skills do not address the benefits of intangibles. But I said that new companies may have opportunities to offer cultural learning and community. And society itself may lose its prejudice against those who skip the path of university.
The question of prolongedness is either adapted or exchanged by higher education. From this book, I thought that the exchange would be a more likely scenario without the luxurious government support that universities and universities currently enjoy.
