Are We Ready for This? Preparing the Education-Workforce System for the 100-Year Career January 21, 2021 By Andrew Pelesh Read Time Strada Article Innovation in Wor... Serving the Adult... Adult Learners Career Connection Completion Employers Navigating Education Nondegree On Purpose Technology ... At the beginning of the 20th century, Americans were lucky to live past their 50th birthday. By the new millennium, average life expectancy in the United States had shot up to nearly 77 years. Today it’s almost certain the first person to live to 150 years already is walking among us, according to Harvard Medical School’s aging expert David Sinclair. As science and technology extend our lifespans to lengths previously unheard of, these same forces continue to disrupt and reshape our economy and society. What does this mean for our working lives? And how will a two- or four-year degree hold up over a potential 80- or 100-year career? If you’re feeling like you have more questions than answers, Michelle Weise understands. “Your reaction, I think, is the same as mine and everyone else’s,” she told our stunned podcast hosts after laying out these facts on a recent episode of Strada’s “Lessons Earned.”“Oh, my gosh, I don’t want to work that long. How is this going to work?” Weise is an entrepreneur-in-residence and senior advisor at Imaginable Futures and formerly served as chief innovation officer at Strada where she led research into the future of work at Strada Institute. “Long Life Learning,” her new book published in conjunction with Strada, takes uncertainty about the future head-on as she lays out a vision for a radically updated education-career system prepared for longer working lives awash with technological and economic disruption. In preparation for the book, Weise and her team at Strada Institute recorded about 100 hours of interviews with working adults from across the United States. Their testimonials provided the researchers with an unfiltered portrayal of the struggles and systemic barriers faced by millions. And they showed the need to transition to a learner-centered ecosystem amid a potentially tumultuous future. That transition requires educators, employers, and policymakers to reform the foundations of our education-workforce system to accommodate an era of work unprecedented in our history as a species. It requires revisualizing how postsecondary education is delivered and cultivating an array of uniquely human skills that can’t be replicated by artificial intelligence. Strada Institute identified five key pillars these lifelong learners will need from an education and training system designed for them: It has to be easy to navigate. Right now “the risk is that everything rests on the individual to figure out. You don’t have someone to call. There’s no trusted advisor you can turn to for good, solid advice,” Weise said. Within a system that is simple to navigate, learners can evaluate where they are and plan a path to reach their goals. Supports are needed to help learners balance their lives. Individuals facing systemic barriers need wraparound supports to overcome obstacles and balance the complexities of life. These include everything from coaching services to address persistent self-doubt faced by nontraditional learners to basic material supports like transportation, child care, and tools for a job. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, “we had over 40 million people who were not planning on coming back to higher ed,” she pointed out, “so what is the way that we can get them what they need in order to do better in the labor market and gain some sort of social and economic mobility?” Targeted education should lead to a job. Weise is skeptical that a degree program front-loaded at the beginning of a career can survive a rapidly changing world of work. Instead, learners need periodic on- and off-ramps to and from programs that respond to hyperlocal needs and deliver the right skills at the right time — with a pathway paved directly toward a job. Hiring practices must be transparent and fair. That means operating in the common language of skills and measuring an individual’s overlooked competencies. “Maybe you’ve had an elderly grandparent in your family who’s been suffering from Alzheimer’s living with you and you’ve been a caregiver. … Ideally, there’s an assessment that can also surface these hidden competencies within you,” she said. Students must be able to earn while learning. None of this works unless individuals can continuously go back to school to retrain while still putting food on the table. Weise suggests portable benefits, like individualized lifelong learning bank accounts, could alleviate the financial burden. These goals are audacious, but Weise says the gravity of the situation requires a response in equal measure. Embedded in her work is a dire warning against the consequences of failing to act now. The forces of automation and globalization already have disrupted the lives of so many Americans, leading to not only financial devastation but deep personal wounds, a sense that the system is intractably rigged, and a loss of purpose. To Weise, the entire concept of an equitable society is at stake. “The future of workers,” she writes in the book, “is the future of us.” Still, Weise remains optimistic. “I think it’s important to cast the problems in a realistic light,” she says. “But it’s even more important to be in this innovation space, to be able to say, look, there’s so much amazing stuff happening. There are these seeds of innovation that are being planted everywhere.” Group 13 Group 11 Group 12 Andrew Pelesh Learn More In the news from Strada March 2, 2021 The Hybrid Campus — More Than a Quick Fix? Amid a pandemic crisis characterized by stay-at-home orders and travel restrictions, the leader of the career center at Stony Brook University describes its fallout with an unexpected word: freedom. Strada Article Innovation in Wor... Serving the Adult... Career Connection COVID-19 Navigating Education On Purpose Engagement & ... Strada Education ... ... February 17, 2021 Prior Learning Assessment Gives Boost to Not Just Students but Schools, Too In her early 20s, Kiabeth Santos was well on her way to achieving her goal of becoming a nurse. She wanted to work in health care, and she loves working with people. But then life — as it often does — got in the way. Strada CAEL Article On Purpose ... February 2, 2021 How One HBCU Helps Students Succeed XULA President Reynold Verret on How His HBCU Helps Students Succeed Strada Article On Purpose January 21, 2021 Are We Ready for This? Preparing the Education-Workforce System for the 100-Year Career Strada Article Innovation in Wor... Serving the Adult... Adult Learners Career Connection Completion Employers Navigating Education Nondegree On Purpose Technology ... January 5, 2021 What Learners Taught Us in 2020 — and What Those Takeaways Mean for 2021 In the earliest days of the pandemic, researchers at Strada Center for Education Consumer Insights realized leaders across our nation would need a real-time understanding of how people were experiencing, thinking about, and feeling about work and education. The research team launched a regular survey, Public Viewpoint, to make these insights widely available — ultimately including more than 25,000 survey participants over the course of 2020. Strada Article Adult Learners Advising Career Connection Completion Consumer Voice COVID-19 On Purpose ... January 4, 2021 Increasing Opportunity for All, During the Pandemic and Beyond ‘Lessons Earned’ Podcast Talks With JFF’s Michael Collins Strada Article Innovation in Wor... Pursuing Equity &... Adult Learners Employers Equity & Oppo... Navigating Education ... December 22, 2020 Paving Education-to-Employment Pathways with Shared Information and Insights The story of one learner’s journey through education and employment is told across several data sets. Enrollment and graduation outcomes tell one part of the story, with labor market information and employer data filling in the blanks. Brighthive, led by CEO and founder Matt Gee, is connecting siloed data systems so learners, employers, and educators alike can make better informed decisions about preparing tomorrow’s workforce. Strada Article Innovation in Wor... Serving the Adult... Adult Learners Career Connection Employers Spotlight Institute for the... ... December 15, 2020 7 Ways To Make College Admissions More Equitable Application requirements favoring families who can apply and commit early without comparing financial aid packages. A preference for legacy students and star athletes. A tendency to recruit from the same high schools year after year. Strada Article Pathways with Pur... Pursuing Equity &... Equity & Oppo... Navigating Education On Purpose ... December 3, 2020 A Year Inside College Admissions: ‘Lessons Earned’ Podcast Opens Season 3 With Author Jeff Selingo It’s college application season, and anxious students and parents throughout the country are strategizing on how to get into the elite colleges of their choice. Journalist and author Jeff Selingo just spent a year inside college admissions offices at three higher education institutions to write his latest book, “Who Gets In and Why.” Strada Article Pathways with Pur... Pursuing Equity &... Serving the Adult... Navigating Education ... November 24, 2020 Long Life Learning: Preparing for Jobs That Don’t Even Exist Yet Long Life Learning offers readers a glimpse into a future where the average working life has no beginning, middle, or end. Contemplating a shift from the educational all-you-can-eat-buffet of college and university to an “as-you-need-it” approach to delivering education, author Michelle Weise explains why and how worker education is overdue for momentous changes. Strada Article Innovation in Wor... Serving the Adult... Adult Learners Career Connection Employers Navigating Education Nondegree Technology Institute for the... ... November 17, 2020 Coming Soon: ‘Lessons Earned’ Season 3 Strada’s “Lessons Earned” podcast, featuring conversations with innovative thinkers and doers seeking to improve the education-workforce system, returns soon as host Ben Wildavsky welcomes a new co-host for Season 3, Braven founder and CEO Aimée Eubanks Davis. Strada Article Adult Learners Advising Career Connection Completion Consumer Voice COVID-19 Employers Equity & Oppo... Navigating Education Nondegree Policy Technology Value ... November 11, 2020 Innovator Spotlight: Techtonic Techtonic Academy’s apprenticeship program is building a more diverse talent pipeline for the tech industry Strada Article Innovation in Wor... Pursuing Equity &... Serving the Adult... Adult Learners Career Connection Completion Employers Nondegree Spotlight Institute for the... ... July 16, 2020 What Role Should Employers Play in Postsecondary Education? Facing unprecedented demand for groceries and other goods delivered to the doors of those isolated by the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon has on-boarded 175,000 employees nationwide in the past few months and continues to hire. Strada Article COVID-19 Employers Navigating Education ... July 8, 2020 Combining Technology and Human Touch to Help Displaced Workers Faced with job losses during the COVID-19 pandemic, many Americans are turning to outplacement services provided by their former employers for help in their next job search. But with the economy faltering and whole categories of jobs going away, job seekers are struggling, and the resume writing, interview prep, and networking assistance that may have provided a boost in the past just aren’t enough now. Strada Article Innovation in Wor... Measuring the Val... Pathways with Pur... Serving the Adult... Career Connection Technology ... May 14, 2020 WGU President: Secret to Online Learning Is Putting Students at the Center Lessons Earned podcast features Scott Pulsipher talking about competency-based education Strada Article Completion COVID-19 Navigating Education Value ... May 11, 2020 Stay Home Why understanding local labor markets will be critical to our economic recovery Strada Article Innovation in Wor... Serving the Adult... Career Connection COVID-19 Employers Nondegree Institute for the... ... May 8, 2020 Braven Doubles Down to Help Students, Alums Build Social Capital Despite Pandemic Latest Lessons Earned podcast features conversation with founder Strada Article Career Connection COVID-19 Equity & Oppo... Navigating Education ... May 4, 2020 5 Ways Higher Education Can Better Serve Latino Students Excelencia offers insights on helping Latino learners during the pandemic and beyond Strada Article Innovation in Wor... Adult Learners COVID-19 Equity & Oppo... Navigating Education Value ... April 30, 2020 Lessons Earned Podcast Explores Community College’s Pandemic Response CCRI President Meghan Hughes embraces opportunity to adapt, learn new skills Strada Article Career Connection COVID-19 Navigating Education ... April 28, 2020 Innovator Spotlight: Advancing targeted learning with technology Pluralsight uses machine learning to put learners on direct path to acquiring skills employers need Strada Article Innovation in Wor... Serving the Adult... Adult Learners Career Connection Employers Spotlight Technology Institute for the... ... April 23, 2020 What COVID-19’s impact means for America’s diverse communities Webinar features Strada researchers, expert guests discussing pandemic’s disproportionate impact on people of color Strada Article Consumer Voice COVID-19 Equity & Oppo... Navigating Education ... April 23, 2020 Lessons Earned Season 2: Responding to the Pandemic Strada podcast explores economic, educational impacts of COVID-19 Strada Article Adult Learners Career Connection Consumer Voice COVID-19 Navigating Education Policy ... April 21, 2020 How to Support Students During COVID-19 Follow these tips from Strada affiliates to help learners through the pandemic Strada Article Advising Completion Consumer Voice COVID-19 Navigating Education ... April 14, 2020 Innovator Spotlight: Co-op finds winning formula in learning + working University of Cincinnati program creates a successful path from education to careers Strada Article Adult Learners Career Connection Completion Employers Spotlight Institute for the... ... April 6, 2020 Resource Center In challenging times, the need to forge pathways to opportunity is greater than ever. We’ve created the Strada Resource Center to inform and empower educators, employers, policymakers, and others seeking to respond to COVID-19. Strada Article Adult Learners Advising Career Connection Completion Consumer Voice COVID-19 Equity & Oppo... Navigating Education Nondegree Policy Technology Value ... April 2, 2020 Public Viewpoint: COVID-19 Work and Education Survey The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted lives, work, and education. Consumer Insights is surveying Americans to share key findings on how people are coping, responding, and planning for the future. Strada Article Career Connection Consumer Voice COVID-19 Navigating Education ... March 10, 2020 Innovator Spotlight: Developing the human side of skills GLEAC helps assess workers’ behavioral skills and map workforce training to build those strengths. Strada Article Innovation in Wor... Serving the Adult... Adult Learners Career Connection Employers Spotlight Institute for the... ... March 3, 2020 Strada Launches New Podcast, Lessons Earned Interviews spotlight efforts to improve the education-workforce ecosystem Strada Article Adult Learners Advising Career Connection Completion Consumer Voice COVID-19 Equity & Oppo... Navigating Education Nondegree Policy Technology Value ... February 20, 2020 Does your resume leave out your most hirable traits? Many employers and jobseekers overlook the most valued skills; here's how to make sure they're noticed Strada Article Innovation in Wor... Pursuing Equity &... Career Connection Employers Equity & Oppo... Institute for the... ... February 20, 2020 Innovator Spotlight: Breaking traditions in tech hiring SV Academy helps employers find depth beyond their typical talent pool Strada Article Innovation in Wor... Serving the Adult... Adult Learners Career Connection Employers Nondegree Spotlight Technology Institute for the... ...