Skills and Lego Blocks
Over the years, Roadtrip Nation has taken different approaches to answering a perennial question: What do you want to do with your life?
Sometimes the show has grouped students in teams, while other installments have focused on particular institutions or geographic regions or states, or certain career sectors, like cybersecurity. Recently, the series has focused on major issues in higher ed: the challenges of first-generation students or Native populations, the value of skills and nondegree paths, the many ways to help students succeed, and the possible paths that community college can provide.
The students at the center of “Rethinking Higher Ed” are thinking through questions about the costs and payoff of a degree, wondering if they are really prepared for college (or if college is prepared to help them). Fait, from New Jersey, was homeschooled from K-12 and graduated from community college, and found herself questioning whether to further pursue her interests in fashion. Gee, who had been involved in politics and local government as a high-school student, says he had always wanted to aim for a college on the East Coast, but worried about the costs. He considered taking a gap year, but ended up enrolling at the University of Hawaii-Manoa. Savala, from a Latino family in Texas, had earned a certificate in criminal justice from San Jacinto College, feeling drawn to law enforcement. But she also doubted herself, having taken the SAT three times to raise her score, and worried she might not be “college ready.”
The two episodes take the road trippers out to discover the world of hidden jobs (a major part of any Roadtrip Nation narrative) and the many institutions that serve broad populations of students but might be off their radar. Some familiar faces in higher-ed circles offer advice along the way: Wil Del Pilar, senior vice president of the policy and advocacy group EdTrust, talks to them about the importance of college to underserved students, and the need for institutions to be “student ready.” Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, describes how higher education might do more than simply offer degrees; it could provide “Lego blocks” that represent skills, competencies, experiences, and other pieces a student has gathered that fit their individual strengths.
“We’re all in this spot where the degree still matters,” Mitchell says, but he notes that college often conveys other advantages. “It also develops a set of networks and social connections that are really important for your growth and development as a human.” Colleges, he says, need to recognize diversity in how people learn and the routes they take.
“It creates an extraordinary opportunity for higher education to rethink itself from giving you knowledge to saying, OK, you have these Lego blocks of knowledge,” he says. “Let us help you figure out what it means together.” Mitchell acknowledges a key challenge: Students need to be savvy enough to know where to pick up these blocks of knowledge, and institutions have to be open enough to accept and work with them.
Listening to Students
Marriner says that a series on the value of college had been planned for a long time. “It’s kind of impossible to work with student voices today and not have them talk about their concern over postsecondary” education, he says. It’s a top issue among a lot of groups of people: He just had a planning call for a forthcoming season with a group of people who are formerly incarcerated, and their key questions revolved around the cost of college relative to its payoff.
Marriner sees dangers in the current conversation that often dismisses the value of higher education: “One of my pet peeves is when people are like, Oh, who needs college? Actually, college is life-changing for most students that had no other opportunity, and college was their on-ramp to a better future. Ask any first-generation college-going student.” Marriner’s own parents did not go to college, as his mother got pregnant with him at age 18. He went to Pepperdine University on Pell Grants — a “game changer” for his life, he says.
A big part of the problem, Marriner says, is that students and families don’t see the options available to them beyond traditional routes and name-brand universities. Many people who work in higher ed know about high-performing regional institutions, dual-enrollment programs, stackable credentials, articulation agreements between two- and four-year colleges, and all the other ways that students can put together a valuable education from local resources — but that message doesn’t often get out widely.
“It’s still stuck at SXSW and ASU GSV, or whatever,” Marriner says. This season focused on “all those secret spots, these best-kept secrets” that are often cheaper, closer to home, and easier to get into. “They’re sometimes the last ones to get on the rankings and charts and whatnot. So instead of going to UCLA, we’re going to go to UC-Riverside.”
Roadtrip Nation — part of the Strada Collaborative, with additional support from organizations like the Gates Foundation and the Walmart Foundation — is now looking for ways to turn the production company’s 13,500 videos, collected from two decades of interviews, into an interactive “virtual road-trip experience.” The project, which is under development, will use artificial intelligence to allow students to virtually interview experts who have participated in Roadtrip Nation and might have spoken about the careers, challenges, or backgrounds in which students are interested.
“This is the moment,” says Marriner, “for young people to see people like them in pathways that represent the future of work, to get a sense of hope. It’s like, OK, if this person can do it, maybe I can do it, too.”
Hidden Careers and New Work Patterns
At the ASU GSV Summit last month, I got a chance to meet both Fait and Savala, sitting in the shade of the green RV behind the convention center. For Savala, education felt like both an opportunity and a burden, like she was “carrying the legacy of my family.” She explained that the road trip had helped her work out questions about how to fulfill her calling to “protect people.” She has thought about becoming a Texas Ranger, but her relatives already working in the field persuaded her that it was too dangerous for a single woman, as the rangers are often posted in lonely border towns. She briefly considered work as a park ranger after the RV made a stop in Colorado, but had hesitations because of the salary and job prospects. Now she has settled on forensic science, which fascinates her and seems more financially secure. She is planning to finish her associate degree at San Jacinto and to attend Sam Houston State University in the fall to study criminology.
Neither of Fait’s parents went to college, and she was homeschooled until she was 17, when she went off to Rowan College for an associate degree. She had never been in a classroom before Rowan, and she says she had only a sixth-grade education in some topics.
“For me, college was everything,” she says. “It really opened up my goals, and I wouldn’t be here today without having gone to that school.” On the road trip, she explored fashion, learning from one of the professionals interviewed — a fashion designer — that sustainability in fashion merchandising is an actual job role in the industry.
“She basically told me straight up that what I want to do exists,” says Fait, who will be going to the Fashion Institute of Technology in the fall. “It really just spurred me on to actually pursue the degree that I’m getting now, because I realized it’s possible.”
Gee is currently studying abroad in Italy as part of a fellowship with the Villars Institute, a foundation that focuses on ecological issues and systems leadership. While he learned from the stories of people interviewed on the road, much of the guidance he heard seemed to him like the timeworn advice you might get from a college counselor.
“I didn’t hear anything that really was like, Here’s how we can move forward,” he said in a video responding to my questions, amid the crush of finals. The interviews with Mitchell and Del Pilar were two exceptions, he says. They fired up his interest in policy and made him curious about how education programs are helping people from different backgrounds or with different goals, both college-bound and not. He feels that all people should be educated, but that doesn’t necessarily mean earning a college degree. He plans to work in education or domestic politics, perhaps running for national office someday.
“Right now,” he says, “I have no specific position I’d run for, but I do really want to help make change.” Gee identifies as politically independent, but he sees how the defunding of the U.S. Department of Education, the cancellation of science grants, the cutting of the safety net, and other contraction in Washington could “cripple the country.”
In addition to that political upheaval, the emergence of AI, the slowdown in employment for college graduates, and the environmental crisis can make things feel pretty dark for a young person heading into the world. “If you can just be a force for light, a force for some optimism, I feel like it’s kind of what people need to hear,” says Marriner. Much of that message comes down to reminding people of their flexibility and ability to learn. Too many people are stuck in the old idea of careers and the notion that they need to pick one thing to do for the rest of their lives.
“We’re trying to chip away at that mindset a little bit,” he says. “It’s just getting students and learners comfortable with change and adaptability, and being OK not having all the answers.”
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There are lots of parallels between the approach used by Roadtrip Nation and the college-to-career method discussed in Hacking College: Why the Major Doesn’t Matter — and What Really Does. Both advocate for helping students look for interests or pursuits that bring meaning to their lives, and in both cases, students are put in situations where they can ask professionals about the skills and backgrounds they would need to enter that world of work.
If you pick up Hacking College, join the Hacking College Learning Community, sponsored by the University of Minnesota and focused on how to apply the book’s techniques to support students and their institutions. The learning community’s discussions start in late May.
