Over the past 15 years, the number of student loan recipients has increased by 51 percent and the debt associated with those loans has more than doubled. More Americans are borrowing more money to go to college.
When do people believe their student loans were worth it? The amount of the loan, how much money someone makes and how much education they completed doesn’t tell the whole story.
Talent Path’s Learn-and-Earn Model Bridges Skills Gap Between College and Career
In the not-so-distant future, workers will make dozens of career changes over a working life of 75 or even 100 years. Michelle Weise, an expert on the future of work and author of “Long Life Learning,” says human skills like communication, creativity, and teamwork will remain critical in an era when robots and automation take over routine jobs. What’s more, workers increasingly will need to learn new skills rather than assuming a degree early in life will carry them through.
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.
How can we better equip learners with the skills they need for today’s jobs? What roles should educators, employers, and policymakers play in transforming education after high school? And how do we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic with new insights about what’s working and what’s not? In Lessons Earned, Strada Education Network’s Ben Wildavsky and co-host Aimée Eubanks Davis of Braven sit down with bold thinkers who are challenging the status quo and exploring ideas to help all Americans navigate between learning and earning. Learn more.
When the COVID-19 pandemic upended our economy, sending millions of Americans to the unemployment lines, it was natural to anticipate an influx of displaced workers as newly enrolled students. That is the historical pattern: when economic downturns threaten the stability of workers’ lives, they turn to higher education’s promise of advancing careers and increasing wages.
Lessons Earned podcast features Scott Pulsipher talking about competency-based education
Western Governors University began as a bold experiment to create a completely online university—a place where learning is self-paced and the institution’s value is measured not by the profiles of its incoming freshmen, but the career success of its graduates. As the COVID-19 pandemic forces colleges and universities across the country into a virtual learning environment, we talk to Scott Pulsipher, president of the nation’s largest online competency-based university.
Long before COVID-19, America’s most vulnerable students were struggling to access not only education and skills training, but the social connections that open doors to great careers. Aimée Eubanks Davis, founder and CEO of Braven, says the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on low-income and minority communities has also laid bare inequities in the education-to-workforce ecosystem. It’s time, she says, to level the playing field so all college graduates can secure strong first jobs that lead to long-term career success.
Excelencia offers insights on helping Latino learners during the pandemic and beyond