Workforce Development is Changing To Meet the 'New Normal' and Community Colleges Could be at the Forefront
Originally published in EdNewsDaily
Even before the pandemic, most executives surveyed by McKinsey identified skills shortages at their companies (with more to come), but fewer than half understand how to fill those gaps. Pandemic-bred uncertainty has only heightened the need for a nimbler workforce, including reskilling and up-skilling workers, to meet a future in which 375 million global workers might need to make significant occupational shifts by 2030.
College programs can address those gaps, but recent reporting shows an existential crisis for higher education (and community colleges specifically): Spring undergraduate enrollment fell 5.9% compared to this time last year. Community colleges were particularly hard-hit, with a double-digit enrollment decrease of 11.3% since the previous year.
Can there be a win-win-win for businesses looking for skilled talent, workers who seek more stable and well-paying jobs, and two-year colleges that need to fill their seats? Yes. And it starts with supporting workers and prospective students. Address their barriers and support them in their reskilling or upskilling journey, and the challenges businesses and two-year colleges face will start solving themselves.
Here are four ways we can create a win-win-win scenario for students, businesses, and two-year colleges:
1. More affordable solutions for degree attainment
Students are concerned with costs and crushing student loan debt, and pandemic-related individual economic pressures have exacerbated that. The good news here is that community colleges are a more affordable way to get workers and learners engaged in education. Community college systems have created specialized programs or certifications that help workers obtain the necessary skills without considering significant student loan debt later.
Additionally, the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan stimulus package provides nearly $40 billion to higher education institutions, including community colleges, to help schools offer financial aid to support people who want to get degrees. The stimulus aimed to pump money into schools with endowments of less than $1 million, with half of the funds designated for emergency financial aid grants to cover students’ attendance costs. The key for community colleges will be communicating these scholarship opportunities to get workers back in the physical or virtual classroom.
2. Changing the narrative about higher and continuing education
In retrospect, the higher education system and “influencers” made a mistake when they pushed the narrative that the only way to a well-paying job was a four-year degree.
As we know, that’s not exactly true.
Those with an associate degree, for instance, earn an average salary of just over $46,000 per year — around $7,300 more annually than those whose education stopped after high school (which translates to an extra $293,000 over a typical 40-year career).
It’s a false choice: Get a four-year degree (and take on tons of student loan debt) to get a well-paying career, or don’t get a four-year degree and prepare yourself for an uncertain and low-paying job. This thinking alienated vulnerable students and left no room to talk about the certification, re-skilling, and up-skilling opportunities for traditional and nontraditional students.
The higher education system needs to change the narrative to elevate the value of training, certification, and two-year degrees.
3. Public-private partnerships
There is a vast delta between technical skills jobs (e.g., welding or solar energy) and people with those requisite skills. Private businesses in these industries are already developing solid partnerships with their local community colleges to expand these skills. We need to continue promoting and supporting these collaborations through strategies such as providing additional funding to bolster the programs or offering tax incentives to encourage businesses to take advantage of them.
On the topic of getting unemployed and laid-off workers back into jobs, business schools and community colleges can complement the private sector. Together, public and private entities can get people back to work while building a workforce that’s stronger than the one before COVID-19. A good example is the Colorado Community College System’s Skill Advance program, which offers customized job training grants for employers. Programs like these provide a clear win for employers (which can subsidize some of the costs of retraining staff members for the future of work) and workers (who gain skills that will keep them competitive in the workforce).
4. Holistic student support beyond just a degree
To get workers into training programs, community colleges need to entice students with more than education. They need to show how they support the “whole student” via financial support, crisis support (such as food and child care assistance), help for emotional distress (pandemic-related or otherwise), and more.
For this reason, institutions are investing in coaching and capacity-building on topics such as trauma-informed care. This coaching can be administered by education social impact organizations such as InsideTrack, which saw a 218% rise in students needing crisis support services between mid-2019 and summer 2020.
Community colleges are already a significant part of the solution in the future of work. But as the world changes at ever-faster rates and technologies such as artificial intelligence chip away at the number of available jobs, community colleges’ role in workforce development will become even more critical.
Post-pandemic, the people who lost their unskilled (or even skilled) jobs have learned the importance of re-skilling and up-skilling. Still, their challenge is access to educational solutions that work for their busy lives.
Facebook is the New Big Tobacco
The recent coverage of Facebook’s manipulative practices is hardly an anomaly. Through its 17-year history, the company has built its fortunes through exploitation, manipulation, and deceit.
Its own internal research showed that its algorithm radicalizes and polarizes many of its users. It helped foment the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. It amplifies misinformation that has increased vaccine hesitancy and harmful conspiracy theories. And it has helped radical leaders to come to power by turning a blind eye to disinformation networks.
There is a precedent for this type of corporate behavior.
For decades, Big Tobacco has preyed on people through its deceitful and manipulative practices. The tobacco industry knew perfectly well, as evidenced through a trove of research exposed in the 1990s, that it was addicting kids and killing its customers. Big Tobacco put profits over people.
And just as businesses and communities had to make a choice in the 1990s – to either ignore the clear evidence that tobacco was killing people to make a profit or to take a stand against Big Tobacco – we need to make a choice today.
Back then, most of our competitors in the public affairs sector happily cashed tobacco industry checks. It was easy money but we never took it.
In fact, our roots are in the anti-tobacco movement. More than 20 years ago, CEO Susan Morrisey led the state’s tobacco prevention coalition and hired SE2 to support the nonprofit’s work. She chose SE2 based on our already strong record in the tobacco prevention movement at that time.
SE2 helps clients create meaningful, positive change. We collaborate with clients to improve teens’ mental health and wellness, and bring people together to solve today’s toughest issues.
Facebook and its Instagram platform contribute to teens’ anxiety and depression and amplify content that further divides society.
To put it bluntly: Facebook’s actions stand in direct conflict with our values and our clients’ goals. And so, we can no longer idly sit by and ignore the intentional harm that Facebook commits.
Until Facebook institutes meaningful changes that contribute to our collective good, we will no longer recommend to our clients that they spend money on its products, including paid promotion of their content on Facebook or Instagram. Furthermore, SE2 will no longer spend its own money on Facebook’s platforms. (In just the past two years, our own spending on Facebook platforms totaled over $15,000.)
Just as we turned down Big Tobacco dollars in the late-90s – joining public health’s fight to protect people against deadly products – we now choose to stop supporting Facebook.
We recognize that we’re a small fish and that the revenue Facebook loses from our decision to pull advertising dollars off its platform won’t put the tiniest dent in its earnings.
But when is it enough? For us, it’s now.
We’re asking our clients, other agencies, and advertisers to join us (and the dozens of other human rights, public health, nonprofit and private businesses) in demanding change.
Not giving Facebook our money is one small thing we can do to live our values, but, perhaps more importantly, it also brings greater public awareness and public pressure on Facebook to change and will protect us from other digital media networks that attempt the same harmful tactics.
Together we can solve our world’s biggest challenges – and Facebook is one of the main problems right now.
We welcome the opportunity to discuss and debate this decision with our clients, partners and colleagues across the industry. Do you have questions, comments or concerns? Let’s talk.
Eric Anderson | Eric [at] SE2ChangeForGood [dot] com
Susan Morrisey | Susan [at] SE2ChangeForGood [dot] com
Brandon Zelasko | Brandon [at] SE2ChangeForGood [dot] com
The Role of Higher Education in the Future of Work
Economists are predicting that the employment rate may not go back to pre-COVID levels until the end of this decade, and that as many as 40 percent of the jobs lost during COVID will never come back.
Which has us thinking a lot about the role that higher education can play in getting people back to work and preparing them today for the jobs of the future.
Does this historic crisis present an opportunity to retool our workforce for tomorrow?
SE2 CEO Susan Morrisey sat down with leaders in the higher education field to gain insights on what getting students back to learning looks like – and what higher education can do now to help prepare people for the future of work post-COVID. Hear from:
- Dave Jarrat, senior vice president of strategic engagement, InsideTrack
- Joe Garcia, chancellor, Colorado Community College System
Watch the video below:
Additional insights from Joe Garcia, chancellor, Colorado Community College System (CCCS):
- “Students are really concerned with costs and crushing student loan debt. That concern has been exacerbated by the individual economic pressures caused by the fallout of COVID-19. The good news is that community colleges, like those that are part of the Colorado Community College System, are a more affordable way to get workers and learners engaged in education, and we have created specialized programs that get workers the skills they need without taking on significant student loan debt.”
- “On the topic of getting people back to work, business and community colleges are great partners to the private sector. Together, we can get people back to work, all while making our workers and workforce stronger than we were before COVID-19. For example, through our Colorado First and Existing Industry Customized Job Training Programs, we grant $4M per year to employers to train and reskill their workers and grow their Colorado-based workforce. Programs like these are a win for employers who can subsidize some of the costs of retraining workers for the future of work. And they are a win for workers who gain skills that will keep them competitive in the workforce.”
- “In terms of the future of work, American workers are staying in the workforce longer than ever. Additionally, any business owner knows that the rate of change in their industry is accelerating. Combined, these trends underscore the need for employers and policymakers to prepare for the future of work now. Community colleges can be great partners in helping you figure out where to start. Continued investment in, and incentives for developing our workforce are critical to meeting the future workforce demands, because the reality that most jobs of the future will require a post-secondary credential. And now is the time to work together to lay the foundation upon which our future economic success depends.”
Insights from Dave Jarrat, senior vice president of strategic engagement, InsideTrack:
- “In terms of getting students back into the classroom, there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty that requires constant backup planning. Additionally, many higher-ed administrators are worried about the existential thread that this poses particularly for those institutions whose value proposition depends on robust residential experience.”
- “We’re also seeing a lot of concern about the mental and emotional impact on students and faculty. Institutions are investing in coaching and capacity building – on topics like trauma-informed care – to better support staff and students. This support is essential to getting students back to learning.”
- “According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the American worker will have an average of 12 jobs over their adult lifetime. This means that workers need to constantly learn new skills to stay competitive. The future of work will require adaptability and resilience – not only for workers, but for employers as well. The future of work is constant reskilling and upskilling.”
- “We believe that by empowering students through coaching we can help them achieve the education that they need to be successful in their career. Through this coaching, we’re supporting colleges, employers and others in building a culture of student and employee success where education and work are continuously intertwined, which is so critically important as we look forward to the future of work.”
