Can a career-navigation site really steer students wisely?
Last week at its annual Horizons conference in Washington, D.C., Jobs for the Future announced the new ASA Center for Career Navigation at JFF, which will include a soon-to-be-developed tech tool that by 2030 aims to help 20 million young learners find, evaluate, and access the education and training that can help them kick off their careers. The project was begun with a $25-million grant from American Student Assistance, an education philanthropy.
It’s a big, bold idea that fits perfectly with ASA’s broader mission to “revolutionize the school-to-work journey for every kid in America, starting in middle school.”
But I’ll admit my first reaction was: Goldie, be careful what you’ve wished for.
I thought that because it was just two years ago during a JFF Horizons gathering in New Orleans that — prompted by a different funder — I solicited your ideas for what gaps in the ecosystem philanthropies could be supporting, and my own answer to that question was better career navigation to help learners make sense of the growing number of educational options now available. I still believe such career navigation is sorely needed. But I’m not convinced this is a challenge a tech tool can solve, even one as ambitious as what ASA and JFF plan. That’s because paths to many careers often aren’t linear. And many of the careers young people might enter may not even exist right now. Finally, I wonder if any tool can really provide objective information on quality, especially considering how many traditional and alternative programs there are.
Obviously, backers of the project think otherwise. Jean Eddy, the president and chief executive of ASA, told me she’s confident that the tool to be developed by this three-year grant will be more comprehensive and more useful than the myriad other career-planning apps or industry-specific sites that now exist. ”We’re putting the learner first,” she told me, noting that the site will include information on a wide range of educational options as well as guidance on how to finance those experiences. “We’re giving kids some agency.”
Usually I flinch when I hear college students described as “kids.” But in this case it’s apt. At least initially, the site’s target audience will be 16- to 24-year-olds, and Eddy said that ASA already has some experience with that demographic. Some 15 million 13- to 18-year-olds are active on three other youth-focused websites it runs: Futurescape, Next Voice, and EvolveMe.
Jeff Bulanda, a veteran of Amazon’s education-benefit program, will be heading up the center for JFF starting in August. He told me at last week’s Horizons conference that he’s already begun immersing himself in TikTok and other elements of Gen Z-ers’ culture to “understand their pain points” and develop a site that suits their needs.
The center will also be active in advocating for policies and funding “in support of high-quality, nondegree pathways.”
My own reservations aside about prioritizing “career planning” at such an early stage for students — because, yes, I’m also aware that many of today’s students don’t have the luxury to just wing it with some help from mommy and daddy once they graduate — I appreciated hearing Bulanda’s take on what he hopes to accomplish with the tool. Ideally, he wants it to make it easier for students to compare programs based on standardized stats, such as job-placement rates and whether employers repeatedly hire from the programs. (Those reminded me of the ways Amazon evaluates education providers that are part of its Amazon Career Choice education program.)
He’s also eager to provide that kind of information in more user-friendly formats than what exists now. As he said to me, “What 19-year-old is going to be able to interpret the data in the College Scorecard?”
I was also glad to hear that he recognizes the tool is just one piece of a bigger puzzle that also needs educators who offer high-quality programs, employers who stay engaged, and learners who are informed. “It is a tool,” he said, “that is going to require an ecosystem.”
Enrollment concerns drive continued interest in outsourcing
Colleges leaders’ interest in partnerships with outside companies shows little sign of waning, according to the latest annual survey conducted by The Chronicle and P3•EDU. Yet while the interest seems “crazily consistent” with recent years, as James Sparkman, a partner at Alpha Education, put it, the reasons often vary. This year, he said, concerns about enrollment and anxiety about the impact of artificial intelligence seem to be the biggest factors.
(Sparkman is one of the organizers of the P3•EDU annual conference hosted by the University of Colorado at Denver in October; the survey, which included responses from 376 college presidents and other top officials, is conducted in conjunction with that conference.)
As with last year, employee training and health and telehealth services were the two areas of colleges’ greatest interest for outsourcing help. Marketing and recruiting was third, with 44 percent of respondents naming it as a priority. AI was fourth, with more than one third of respondents citing it.
A year ago, only about a quarter of respondents named AI as an area their institution was most interested in for outsourcing partnerships. Whether AI was a top priority for outsourcing help or of lower interest, the vast majority — 71 percent — of this year’s respondents said they expected they would need to forge a partnership with the private sector to put in place or manage new developments around AI.
The survey didn’t explicitly ask about why colleges might be interested in marketing and recruiting help, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to venture an educated guess. Many colleges are suffering from enrollment declines. The survey did dig deeper on AI. Asked where they expect AI to have a positive impact on their campuses in the next two to three years, college leaders cited greater efficiency, creating personalized learning experiences, and advancing research. As for the negative impacts of AI, the top concerns included reducing student engagement, perpetuating bias, disrupting learning, and exposing student data.
Two other sets of questions on the survey also caught my eye. The first set suggests that colleges are becoming more confident of their abilities to create online programs but still remain very dependent on outside partners to scale them up. Only a quarter of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that an outside party was needed to start online programs, but 42 percent agreed or strongly agreed that partners were necessary to scale them up.
The second set of questions compared satisfaction levels on partnerships built around revenue-share models versus those where colleges pay a direct fee for services Those results (which covered not just online programs but partnerships for all sorts of services) showed higher satisfaction levels for the fee-for-service models (77 percent were satisfied or very satisfied) than for revenue sharing (64 percent).
Worth noting here: 2U, one of the most prominent companies offering online-program-management services — including enrollment and marketing services — last week announced a pre-packaged bankruptcy. It’s also a company that relies heavily on the revenue-share model for its income. Make of that what you will.
Join me and colleagues for The Chronicle Festival: The Road Ahead to 2035
The Chronicle’s annual ideas festival takes place online September 10-12. As part of the program, I’ll be talking with Eboo Patel, founder of Interfaith America, on how higher ed can prepare students to live and work in our increasingly fragile democracy. The agenda also includes a bunch of other terrific guests, with several of my colleagues as moderators. We hope you’ll join us for some or all of the programs. Registration is free. Sign up here to watch live or later on demand.
Keep up with developments on DEI
Is your work being affected by the movement against diversity, equity, and inclusion? With so many bills and new policies impacting higher ed across the country, it’s hard to keep track. But my colleagues have been on the case for months with a special DEI Legislation Tracker that monitors state and federal actions in this arena. If you want to stay on top of developments, sign up for an email alert and we’ll update you when new bills or laws drop.
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