> Skip to content
FEATURED:
  • The Evolution of Race in Admissions
Sign In
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Data
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
Sign In
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Data
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Data
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
Sign In
ADVERTISEMENT
TheEdgeIcon.png

The Edge

Connect with the people and ideas reshaping higher education, written by Goldie Blumenstyk. Delivered every other Wednesday. To read this newsletter as soon as it sends, sign up to receive it in your email inbox.

July 20, 2022
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Show more sharing options
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Copy Link URLCopied!
  • Print

From: Goldie Blumenstyk

Subject: The Edge: A Higher Bar for Higher Ed?

I’m Goldie Blumenstyk, a senior writer at The Chronicle covering innovation in and around higher ed. This week, I report on developments that could further challenge the value proposition of a college degree, and my colleague Maura Mahoney outlines helpful benefits, like virtual career training, for front-line staff members.

We’re sorry. Something went wrong.

We are unable to fully display the content of this page.

The most likely cause of this is a content blocker on your computer or network. Please make sure your computer, VPN, or network allows javascript and allows content to be delivered from c950.chronicle.com and chronicle.blueconic.net.

Once javascript and access to those URLs are allowed, please refresh this page. You may then be asked to log in, create an account if you don't already have one, or subscribe.

If you continue to experience issues, contact us at 202-466-1032 or help@chronicle.com

I’m Goldie Blumenstyk, a senior writer at The Chronicle covering innovation in and around higher ed. This week, I report on developments that could further challenge the value proposition of a college degree, and my colleague Maura Mahoney outlines helpful benefits, like virtual career training, for front-line staff members.

Know others who might also enjoy The Edge? Please share this link with them so they can get it free in their inbox every week, too.

It might be (even) harder now for higher ed to prove its value.

If you don’t need a bachelor’s degree to get a good job, what does that do to the value of college? And perhaps even more to the point: How does that raise the bar on the ROI of higher education?

Those are two questions I’ve been pondering a lot as I take in a series of studies on the changing job market, some recent pronouncements on more-equitable hiring, and the growing movement for what people are calling learner and employment records. I’m also contemplating the impact of a national ad campaign to debut in September, urging employers to look beyond “the paper ceiling” and hire job candidates based on their skills.

I’ll confess that right now, I don’t know the answers. But I do think these developments collectively pose some big challenges for higher ed in the next few years, especially given enrollment’s already downward slide.

So let me explain what’s gotten my mental juices going here. I’m curious to hear if these pieces add up for you as they do for me (let me know).

The job-market studies, both produced by the Burning Glass Institute and other partners, are a good place to start. Researchers examined more than 15 million job postings nationally between 2016 and 2021 and found that more than a third of the top 20 skills specified for the average job had changed. One in five of those top skills was entirely new to the work. And the pace of change accelerated during the pandemic.

Matt Sigelman, the institute’s president, sees “significant implications for higher education and its ability to ensure that graduates have the skills they need to launch successfully,” he wrote me when the report was released in May. So, no, higher ed isn’t out of the game, and indeed still has a vital role to play.

However, an earlier Burning Glass Institute report (released in February) found that employers’ demand for bachelor’s and postgraduate degrees was “starting to decrease perceptibly.” Across multiple sectors, almost half of middle-skill jobs and nearly a third of high-skill occupations showed significant reductions in degree requirements between 2017 and 2021. That pattern also accelerated during the pandemic.

This is good news for equity in hiring. By the institute’s estimate, over the next five years the shifts will mean 1.4 million more jobs open to workers with the requisite skills but no degree.

Employers aren’t lowering their standards, Sigelman told me. When they drop degree requirements, job postings become more specific about skills, spelling out the soft skills once assumed to come with a college education, such as writing, communication, and attention to detail. In other words, the employers are not relying as much on the degree as a signal.

The development of digital wallets — tools containing workers’ learner and employment records — could propel more skills-based hiring. The wallets let individuals collect and share verifiable records of their schooling, work, training programs, and military service, among other experience. The tools are still emerging as a factor in hiring, but as I heard on a Credential Engine webinar last week, this is an active front, including a push for common technical standards among wallet developers. Such consistency would be a vital step in actually importing data from a variety of sources and sharing that via employers’ applicant-tracking systems. (This market scan on digital wallets, produced by Jobs for the Future, offers a ton more detail.)

Will the skills-based hiring trend continue? While some major employers, like IBM and Accenture, have famously altered their hiring practices, the Burning Glass Institute notes that several tech companies that had made big announcements about favoring skills over degrees in hiring for IT jobs still haven’t eliminated degree requirements from their job descriptions. And I wonder what will happen once the current glut of jobs gets filled and employers can be pickier again.

Others aren’t as doubtful. This shift is real and long term, and it will continue to be fueled by “the structural shortage of talent we’re facing,” said Joseph Fuller, a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School and a co-author of the institute’s February report. “Good companies are going to start changing their procedures,” he told me when we chatted this spring at the Jobs for the Future conference in New Orleans. “The smarter companies will adapt faster, and they will win.”

There’s no denying that the movement for more-equitable hiring does have momentum right now. In recent months, governors in both Colorado and Maryland have announced campaigns to eliminate four-year-degree requirements for thousands of state jobs, moves that come in the wake of a 2020 executive order calling for an end to “the overreliance on college degrees” in federal hiring.

The momentum could mount when the public-service ad campaign gets under way. The Paper Ceiling campaign, developed by Opportunity@Work and the Ad Council, is designed to encourage more employers “to remove hiring barriers” that now keep qualified workers from landing jobs. I’ve written before about Opportunity@Work and its equity-minded efforts to lift the prospects of some 71 million people in the United States it describes as “skilled through alternate routes.” Notably, associate degrees seem to qualify as an alternate route.

Opportunity@Work does not mean to attack higher education, says Byron Auguste, the organization’s co-founder and CEO. “It’s not college that’s the enemy,” he said when he previewed the campaign at the JFF conference. “The paper ceiling is the enemy.” Still, I can’t help but think the distinction might get lost along the way, especially in the campaign’s characterization of alumni networks as part of “the invisible barrier” in hiring.

To be clear, I think Opportunity@Work is on the money in highlighting how employers’ reliance on alumni connections leaves many qualified job candidates at a disadvantage. I also know that many colleges promote their alumni networks as a selling point. That’s why I see the ad campaign, against the backdrop of these other developments, as further challenging the value of higher ed.

What does a degree represent beyond a graduate’s collection of skills acquired in college? What distinguishes the experience? How can institutions help graduates communicate that to potential employers? If and when learner and employment records come into their own, how will they affect the value of a degree? Will this truly become an economy where people successively acquire education from various providers throughout their lives? How can colleges capitalize on any of this?

My cup of questions runneth over, and I’d love to hear from you on any of them. Will any or all of this raise the bar for higher ed? Please write to me here, and I’ll share what I hear in a future newsletter.

Staff members need support, too.

“Put the student first.” This tenet of student success has become a campus mantra. Meanwhile, how can institutions keep dedicated — but human — staff members at all levels from burning out? How can leaders help the people who help the students?

A recent Chronicle virtual event, “The Role of Frontline Workers, Online and On Campus,” covered strategies for staff collaboration at student-centered institutions and provided tips on how to retain and engage employees, a pressing concern given staff shortages and fatigue.

Part of our yearlong series on student success, produced with support from the Ascendium Education Group, the panel was moderated by Katherine Mangan, a Chronicle senior writer, and Sabrina Sanders, director of a student re-engagement program at California State University-Dominguez Hills. Here are two takeaways.

Professional development matters. Remote work isn’t an option for housekeepers, so Washington University in St. Louis devoted some days to virtual career training. The positive response was “a wake-up call to us that we should have been doing this” even before the pandemic, said Kawanna Leggett, senior vice president for student affairs. Valencia College, in Orlando, encourages staff members who may sometimes feel like they’re just punching the clock to take advantage of expanding virtual opportunities for professional education. That learning “ties people into the work they’re doing from a career perspective,” said Daniel T. Barkowitz, assistant vice president for financial aid and veterans’ affairs.

Emphasize “active management.” Keep in frequent touch with employees, said Joseph Spadaro, vice president for information technology at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. If staffers need a flexible schedule because of personal commitments, “the answer is always yes,” he said. Leaders need to show compassion, said Sherri C. Roberts, the registrar at Southeast Arkansas College. Supervisors should listen to their employees, she added, instead of “always saying, ‘Get to work, work, work.’” Managers can even be vulnerable themselves to connect with their staff, suggested Barkowitz. “Sometimes life is just hard.” —Maura Mahoney

Got a tip you’d like to share or a question you’d like me to answer? Let me know, at goldie@chronicle.com. If you have been forwarded this newsletter and would like to see past issues, find them here. To receive your own copy, free, register here. If you want to follow me on Twitter, @GoldieStandard is my handle.

Goldie’s Weekly Picks

  • Devon Mitchell, 43, of Kingston, Tenn., poses for a portrait at her home on Friday June, 17, 2022. Mitchell works full-time at DWK Life Sciences as a Production Associate while attending Roane State Community College studying Business and Accounting. 

William DeShazer for The Chronicle
    STUDENTS

    An Adult Student’s Hard Lessons

    By Lee Gardner
    More than 39 million Americans have some college and no degree. What will it take to get them graduated?
  • Illustration showing the web sites of two crisis pregnancy centers, and a U.S. map showing the location of these centers around the country.
    Student Health

    Crisis-Pregnancy Centers Have Been Orbiting Campuses for Years. What Are They?

    By Nell Gluckman
    Scholars who study them say they are evangelical Christian organizations that try to persuade women not to have abortions.
  • ANN ARBOR, MI - OCTOBER 31: University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel speaks at a news conference announcing the resignation of Michigan Athletic Director David Brandon in the Regents Room of the Fleming Administration Building October 31, 2014 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Brandon has been under intense fire and scrutiny, particularly over the past weeks after Michigan's quarterback Shane Morris suffered a concussion during the 2014 football season. Jim Hackett, who retired this year as CEO of Michigan-based furniture company Steelcase, has been named interim athletic director. ( Joshua Lott, Getty Images)
    Leadership

    Why U. of Michigan and Cal State Are Changing Their Presidents’ Contracts

    By Sylvia Goodman
    Faculty-retreat rights are a longstanding tradition, but now colleges are looking to close the loopholes that have allowed some fired administrators to stay on as faculty members.
Innovation & TransformationCareer PreparationLeadership & GovernanceFinance & OperationsLaw & Policy
Goldie Blumenstyk
The veteran reporter Goldie Blumenstyk writes a weekly newsletter, The Edge, about the people, ideas, and trends changing higher education. Find her on Twitter @GoldieStandard. She is also the author of the bestselling book American Higher Education in Crisis? What Everyone Needs to Know.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
  • Explore
    • Get Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Blogs
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Find a Job
    Explore
    • Get Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Blogs
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Find a Job
  • The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • DEI Commitment Statement
    • Write for Us
    • Talk to Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • User Agreement
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Site Map
    • Accessibility Statement
    The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • DEI Commitment Statement
    • Write for Us
    • Talk to Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • User Agreement
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Site Map
    • Accessibility Statement
  • Customer Assistance
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise With Us
    • Post a Job
    • Advertising Terms and Conditions
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
    Customer Assistance
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise With Us
    • Post a Job
    • Advertising Terms and Conditions
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
  • Subscribe
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Institutional Subscriptions
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Manage Your Account
    Subscribe
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Institutional Subscriptions
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Manage Your Account
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2023 The Chronicle of Higher Education
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • linkedin