College is so 1900’s

Are you worried about sending your kid to college?

Turns out, a lot of parents are.

Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported that “of 100 students enrolling in college today, 40 will not graduate and another 20 will end up chronically underemployed.”

There’s been a lot of gloomy talk about the future of America’s tertiary education system in recent years, and for good reason.

Between the student loan crisis, grade inflation, and the dwindling value of a bachelor’s degree, it’s rare to come across a positive story about college.

According to Gallup, Americans’ confidence in higher education fell to 36% in 2023.

Yep. That sounds about right.

But before you fall into a pit of despair, I’m going to give you two compelling reasons why this is actually a good thing.

1. Stagnation fuels innovation

The WSJ article does a fantastic job of explaining why universities do such a poor job of keeping their degree programs current with the type of education that’s required to excel in today’s labor market.

In essence, it’s because all the stuffy humanities professors want to hold on to their jobs. Not even kidding. 🤷

But if the universities won’t rise to the challenge of training kids for –gasp– actual jobs, other (more nimble) organizations will. In fact, they already are.

And this is a great thing, because non-university organizations like private companies and nonprofits are better positioned to give students up-to-the-minute hands-on training.

Take edtech company Saasguru as an example. 

The founders recognized a significant shortage in cloud skills, and in a few short years, have delivered accredited training to over 70k students, preparing them for critical roles.

On the nonprofit side, Square co-founder Jim McKelvey created LaunchCode to provide free project-based training for in-demand tech jobs, sticking with their students until they get hired, often at 2x the salary of their previous position. 👊

And those are only two examples of hundreds.

Heck, I founded BETA Camp for high schoolers because I observed a massive gap between the skills taught in school, and the skills I needed once I entered the workforce.

2. We’re focusing more on life skills

There is absolutely a place in our culture for academia.

But in recent decades, its importance has been outsized (in my opinion) — especially when compared to the attention that has been paid to developing crucial life skills.

And I’m not talking about skills like sewing and cooking. I mean skills like:

• Goal setting

• Critical thinking

• Financial literacy

• Leadership 

• Communication

• Adaptability

• Resilience

The distrust of American universities paired with the chaos of the pandemic has forged a perfect storm that has catapulted life skills to the top of the talking points.

And I can’t help but think that this is, fundamentally, a good thing. 🤷

For the first time, schools like Alpha are adopting life skills into their curriculum, and actually testing them.

How?

Here are some examples for 5th graders:

🧠 Critical Thinking: Study for and score above 150 on the logic games section of the LSAT.

🗣️ Communication: Write an article that reaches an audience of 1k.

💪 Resilience: Learn a language and pass the Cambridge B1 level assessment.

The tides are turning on tertiary education, but there are plenty of alternatives available, and more are being developed every day.

So stay optimistic, my friends. Your kid’s future is bright. ☀️