Lessons Earned Season 2: Responding to the Pandemic

Recent Strada research points to a striking disparity between first-year students’ aspirations for career planning in their undergraduate years and seniors’ actual experiences.

More than 18 months into the pandemic, the employment headlines can seem like an algebraic riddle: If U.S. employers are seeking workers to fill 10.9 million jobs, how can 8.4 million workers be unemployed?

Economist Beth Akers insists she’s not a college debt crisis denier. College is expensive — more than double the cost today compared to the 1980s. And too many students pay too much for it, she said, not only in relation to what they can afford now, but also to what they will earn after graduation.

As provost and later president at the University of Utah, Ruth Watkins called out the “hollow promise” a university delivers to college students who have access to higher education but leave without completing a degree.

Deborah Santiago’s parents always made clear she and her three siblings would go to college.

Roslyn Clark Artis grew up in southern West Virginia, the only African American in her graduating class. The daughter of a coal miner, she dreamed of becoming a lawyer and applied to every public university in her home state, hoping to find an affordable route to college.

Recruiting, hiring, and training improvements are here to stay, employer survey says

This career exploration and readiness program’s formula for learner success combines social capital, self-discovery to launch career pathways for first-gen grads

Just half of college alumni feel it was worth it to take out loans to attend college, with even lower levels of satisfaction from Black and Latino alumni about their loans.

Invest now in community colleges to fuel economic opportunity

Talent Path’s Learn-and-Earn Model Bridges Skills Gap Between College and Career

Can the pandemic induce higher education to jump-start the future of learning?

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.

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.

XULA President Reynold Verret on How His HBCU Helps Students Succeed

Preparing the Education-Workforce System for the 100-Year Career

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.

‘Lessons Earned’ Podcast Talks With JFF’s Michael Collins

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.

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.