surviving

Escaping The Backrooms Of Workforce Development — by Ryan Craig

Which makes sense. Because far too many find themselves in a liminal space, neither in school nor a career. Needing to make a living in an era of digital transformation and AI, they’re having a horrific time finding their way into and around work. So it’s not just education and training wonks who think workforce is the defining issue of our time. The success of Backrooms demonstrates Gen Z thinks so, too.

It’s happening everywhere. Young people around the world are angry at how hard it’s become to launch careers. This summer an entire protest movement arose in India – the world’s largest Gen Z population – around entrance exams for medical school, one of the few remaining sure bets. In the UK, youth unemployment is over 16%; it’s 15% across the EU and over 25% in Sweden. Back home, nearly 400,000 young Americans stopped looking for work in June alone. So it’s urgent that we identify what actually works to help young people get good first jobs.

The answer lies between apprenticeship perfection and train-and-pray scale. We desperately need a scalable training-first model that’s as proximate as possible to employment opportunities, employers, and actual employment. That can only mean work-based learning: real work experience completed during or connected with a training, certificate, or degree program. Work-based learning can take many forms: rotations, clinics, co-ops, internships, short projects. It can be integrated into coursework or independent. But what all forms require are bona fide employers, which regulate scale. Such programs can enroll only as many as can fit within the constraint of available work-based learning opportunities.

Also see:

Is Your College A Zombie? — from forbes.com by Ann Kirschner; via Ryan Craig

I want to be careful here, because this is not an argument that universities are doing nothing. They are doing an enormous amount. New programs, AI task forces, employability frameworks, microcredentials, and shifts in how they enable lifelong learning.

Activity is not the problem; what has not changed is the machinery that decides what counts. Too many institutions move in herds rather than forging an independent path. When one college launches a new program, say, data science and AI, fifty will follow without asking whether their version serves their students or simply checks a competitive box.

Meanwhile, 88% of American professionals believe colleges and universities should be the ones providing AI training, and nearly half say their employers have offered no AI resources whatsoever.¹

Once globally preeminent, U.S. universities are sliding into decline — from hechingerreport.org by Jon Marcus
High costs, political attacks take a toll as fewer students come, top scholars leave

Top scholars are leaving. Fewer international students are coming. U.S. universities are slipping in international rankings. And American universities have failed to keep pace as other countries pour resources into their higher education systems.
…
Blaming the interruptions in funding that have already occurred, top research universities have admitted 15 percent fewer doctoral students for the coming fall, including in fields such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing, according to the Association of American Universities, or AAU. Many didn’t take any new doctoral students at all.

Colleges made deep staff cuts while adding tenure-track faculty last year — from highereddive.com by Ben Unglesbee
The latest survey of higher education employees from CUPA-HR found the biggest spike in tenure-track professors since at least 2016.

Dive Brief:

Full-time staff at colleges dropped 6.6% in 2025 compared to the year before, ending several years of growth, according to data released Wednesday by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources.
The decline was even sharper among part-time staff, whose ranks plunged by 23.9% last year, CUPA-HR’s latest survey data showed.
However, faculty numbers grew overall during the year. Tenure-track faculty headcounts saw the largest spike at 7% year over year, the biggest increase for that group since at least 2016.

Pace of college closings picks up, with more projected — from hechingerreport.org by Jon Marcus
Falling enrollment, rising debt have put an estimated 1 in 4 institutions at risk

More than 440 of the nation’s private, nonprofit four-year colleges and universities are now at risk, based on enrollment trends, debt and other measures, according to projections by Huron Consulting Group. That’s a quarter of the total.

Among the most endangered: small, rural and religiously affiliated institutions.

And how to dispose of the real estate is among the least of the challenges facing shuttering campuses and the students they serve.

University of Houston slashes 40% of courses from its core curriculum — from highereddive.com by Ben Unglesbee
The Texas institution cut about 100 classes, including in women’s and LGBT studies, to comply with a state law mandating general education reviews.

Dive Brief:

The University of Houston has slashed about 40% of courses from the flagship’s core curriculum as it works to comply with a new state law dictating the architecture of general education requirements at Texas public colleges.
In the 2026-27 academic year, UH will adopt a core curriculum list with roughly 100 fewer classes after the University of Houston System’s board unanimously approved administrators’ proposal on Thursday. Among the classes dropped were courses in women’s and LGBT studies.
The overhaul is meant to satisfy the Texas statute known as SB 37, which mandates that public institutions’ core courses be “foundational” to postsecondary education, prepare students for the workforce and civic life, and cover “a breadth of knowledge.”

From DSC:
Re: Jeff’s posting above…I think that faculty often taught what THEY wanted to teach — versus what the market was asking for. If I were on the academic administration side of the house right now, I’d be seeking out and listening very closely to what the adjunct faculty members on campus are saying.

Why recruiters can’t find workers and new grads can’t find jobs (it’s not AI) — from washingtonpost.com by Jon Marcus
Experts say a major labor shortage looms because of population shifts and a mismatch between new graduates’ skills and employers’ needs.

Recent college graduates complain they can’t find entry-level jobs because artificial intelligence is taking over.

Yet, tech recruiter Matt Walsh and other experts say the growth of AI and the struggle to find entry-level work mask a bigger problem: The United States is facing what’s projected to become the largest labor shortage in its history.

In sectors such as semiconductor production, the problem isn’t AI or too few jobs, said Walsh, CEO of the Phoenix-based search firm Blue Signal.

“It’s ridiculous,” he said. “There just aren’t enough people.”

Economists warn that the worsening labor problem, due in part to a skills shortage and population shifts, will be vast and reach beyond tech.

Among the trends that have been leading to this moment: a mismatch between the careers college graduates are pursuing and the jobs employers are struggling to fill. Far fewer students are majoring in health care fields than are needed to meet demand, for instance.

“We have pumped so many young people into business and finance” when what’s really in demand are graduates in other fields, Hetrick said. “It’s like a factory producing these workers like widgets, even though society is saying, ‘We really don’t need them.’ And the factory just keeps pumping them out.”

LEGAL FUTURISMS: Consumer Legal Tech and the Soul of US Democracy

The “Dollar Legal” Thought Experiment

What if the salvation of our democratic enthusiasm doesn’t come from a political revolution, but a technological one? Enter the thought experiment of Dollar Legal.

Imagine a ubiquitous, consumer-facing legal tech platform—accessible from any smartphone—that commoditizes basic legal defense and assertion of rights. It is AI-driven legal agency for the masses, costing no more than a cup of coffee, or perhaps literally a single dollar.

Dollar Legal wouldn’t exist to litigate complex corporate mergers; it would exist to handle the agonizing friction of everyday survival. It instantly analyzes a notice to quit, drafts a legally sound response asserting warranty of habitability defenses, and files it electronically. It forces the bureaucratic machine to pause. It translates the raw, terrifying human experience of a legal threat into the cold rules and procedures that the justice system understands.

And the price, $1.00, at sufficient scale, would support the operation and maintenance of the service.

By deploying Dollar Legal, we fundamentally shift the balance of power. The democratization of legal leverage changes the calculus for bad actors who rely on the silent default judgments of the unrepresented.

From DSC:
Following are several companies that are using AI to connect people to work. That’s a significant piece of my Learning from the Living [AI-Based Class] Room vision.

These companies were listed on an article entitled,
“Can AI be an effective career coach?”
— from achievepartners.com and Ryan Craig

FutureFit AI
Bridge the gap between talent, training, and employment at scale

AI-powered workforce technology connecting people to careers, employers to talent, and workforce partners to tools for integrated and intelligent workforce systems.

PathPilot AI

Empowering every job seeker with personalized AI coaching. Helping organizations scale career services and improve outcomes.

Empower Students with Career-Ready Skills
Help students discover career pathways, develop essential skills, and connect with opportunities. PathPilot provides personalized guidance that scales across your entire institution.

AI-powered career exploration and pathway planning
Skills assessment aligned with NACE competencies
Resume builder and interview preparation tools
Job matching with local and national employers
Institutional analytics and outcome tracking
Integration with existing career services systems

Pathific — Design your future
The all-in-one platform that connects your strengths to programs, careers, and real salary outcomes — powered by AI.

High school, post-secondary, newcomer to Canada, or career change — Pathific meets you where you are.

Your all-in-one career compass
Quality career guidance shouldn’t depend on where you go to school, when you start your journey, or where you come from. Using the latest AI and comprehensive Canadian data, we built a platform that gives everyone clear, data-driven pathways to their future. No more one-size-fits-all advice. No more guessing. Just your strengths, connected to real data.

OpportuNext

See Where Your Skills Can Take You | Find new career path opportunities with one simple search.

OpportuNext from Signal49 Research is a free-to-use career tool created in partnership with the Future Skills Centre. Using big data, it matches a person’s skills with viable career paths — often including some you have not considered.

And here’s the link to Robert’s posting on LinkedIn.

OPINION: If higher education wants to rebuild public trust, start with making college affordable — from hechingerreport.org by John B. King, Jr.
Addressing high tuition, food insecurity and child care needs are important first steps

Higher education is under siege, with many students and parents balking at high costs. In a series of op-eds, university leaders lay out their efforts to keep college affordable. This is the first in the series.

For many people across the country, paying for college is the largest investment they will ever make. Increasingly, it’s one that feels out of reach.

Over the past two decades, tuition and fees at private, national universities have jumped by 112 percent; at some “elite” and highly selective schools the annual cost of attendance now approaches $100,000.

If higher education is to rebuild public trust, affordability can’t be an afterthought. It must be at the center of our strategic focus.

Also from The Hechinger Report, see:

What it’s like to enter the job market in the middle of an AI revolution — from hechingerreport.org by Neal Morton
‘It’s not looking good’: The unemployment rate for recent grads is the highest in five years, but AI is not primarily to blame — at least not yet

Addendum on 6/10/25:

The Real Mission of Higher Education Is Hiding in Plain Sight — from insidehighered.com by John Warner
A guest post laying out a path forward for all institutions.

Most colleges and universities are not actually organized around learning. They’re organized around teaching, research productivity, rankings, revenue, and the preservation of institutional prestige. Students sense this, even when they can’t articulate it. The public senses it, too. Academic researchers themselves have been making this argument for decades, but it has rarely felt more urgent than it does right now.

The Yale report says, wisely, that “trust is earned by doing what you say you’re going to do.” Universities say they’re about learning. The way to rebuild trust is to actually mean it and to build institutions that prove it.

The Yale committee is right that trust must be rebuilt through action over messaging. The most fundamental action, and the one most often overlooked, is this: Get learning right.

Connecting the Tangled Systems of Reentry Training and Employment [Arrojas]

On 05/28/2026, in adult learning, career development, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, economics, legislatures / government / legal, participation, skills, society, sociology, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, training / L&D, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Connecting the Tangled Systems of Reentry Training and Employment — from workshift.com by Matthew Arrojas; via Paul Fain

After release, formerly incarcerated people must navigate a maze of government systems, workforce programs, and parole requirements. They are rarely prepared to do this, and as a result, nearly half (45%) report no earnings within the first year of their release, according to research from the Brookings Institution.

The Big Idea: Reducing those barriers has become an increasing focus for a number of philanthropies and colleges. It’s also a growing labor market imperative.

There’s also an incentive for many states to help this population of potential workers land jobs. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, formerly incarcerated individuals who are unable to maintain employment experience a recidivism rate of 52% over three years, while those who are employed for one year post-release experienced a recidivism rate of just 16%.

The TalentLMS 2026 Annual L&D Benchmark Report — from talentlms.com
From year-over-year training benchmarks to learner–leader gaps, see the data that defines the new era of learning. To turn insight into action, the report lays out 10 evidence-backed interventions to hardwire development. Plus, lift the lid on Learning Debt: What it is and how to spot it.

Executive summary
The skills economy is being rewritten in real time. AI is reshaping what people need to know, do, and deliver, faster than organizational structures can adapt. The result is a workplace caught between acceleration and inertia. Companies are racing to reskill for an AI-driven future while relying on structures built for yesterday’s world.

This TalentLMS 2026 L&D Benchmark Report captures that inflection point. Based on data collected through 2025, and compared with earlier findings from 2022 to 2024, it explores how learning is evolving and what’s holding it back.

Our research integrates two vantage points: HR leaders overseeing learning initiatives and employees receiving formal training. Together, they offer a dual perspective on how learning is managed and how it’s experienced.

The analysis also draws on insights from external research and leading L&D practitioners, anchoring the report in both evidence and practice.

Combined, the findings point to a structural fault line: Learning is expanding in scope but contracting in space. Organizations are multiplying programs, tools, and ambitions, yet the conditions for learning — time, focus, and cognitive bandwidth — keep shrinking.

The data from this report underscores this critical conflict: According to half of the surveyed employees and learning leaders, high workloads leave little room for training, even when it’s needed.

Employees work inside a permanent sprint, where attention is fragmented and reflection is sidelined. The space for learning is collapsing under the weight of doing. Sixty-five percent of employees say performance expectations have risen this year, yet lack of time remains the biggest barrier to learning.

The numbers confirm what employees and learning leaders both feel: Technology can advance overnight. But people and cultures can’t.

What does journalism education look like when AI is starting to do entry-level work? [Caplan]

On 04/25/2026, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, change, changing business models, colleges, community colleges, ethics, faculty/staff, higher education, ideas, journalism, morals/values, staying relevant, surviving, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

Jeremy Caplan’s post on LinkedIn:

Or see Jeremy’s post on substack — i.e., from wondertools.substack.com.

More than a quarter of private colleges are at risk of closing, new projection shows [Marcus]

On 04/14/2026, in 21st century, business side of he, change, colleges, faculty/staff, funding / grants, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, parents/guardians, student-related, surviving, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

More than a quarter of private colleges are at risk of closing, new projection shows — from hechingerreport.org by Jon Marcus
As one Vermont college finishes its last semester, an estimated 442 others may be in trouble

A new estimate projects that 442 of the nation’s 1,700 private, nonprofit four-year colleges and universities, with a combined 670,000 students, are at risk of closing or having to merge within the next 10 years.

More than 120 institutions are at the very highest risk, according to the forecast, by Huron Consulting Group, which analyzed enrollment trends, tuition revenue, assets, debt, cash on hand and other measures. Many are, like Sterling, small and rural.

“We have too many seats. We have too many classrooms,” said Peter Stokes, a managing director at Huron. “So over the coming five to 10 years, this shakeout is going to take place.”

The AI-based learning platform of the future will be constantly doing this

On 03/24/2026, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, career development, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, education technology, emerging technologies, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, lifelong learning, more voice more choice more control, personalized/customized learning, platforms, reinvent, skills, society, student-related, surviving, tools, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
I have been proposing that the AI-based learning platform of the future will be constantly doing this — every single day. It will know what the in-demand skills are — at any given moment in time. It will then be able to direct you to resources that will help you gain those skills. Though in my vision, the system is querying actual/open job descriptions, not analyzing learning data from enterprise learners. Perhaps I should add that to the vision.

Coursera’s Job Skills Report 2026: Top skills for your students — from coursera.org

The Job Skills Report 2026 analyzes learning data from more than 6 million enterprise learners to identify the future job skills organizations need most. It’s designed for HR and L&D leaders; data, IT, and software & product development leaders; higher education administrators; and government agencies seeking actionable insights on workforce skills trends and AI-driven transformation.
…
Drawing on data from 6 million enterprise learners across nearly 7,000 organizations, the Job Skills Report 2026 guides you through the skills reshaping the global economy. This year’s analysis spans Data, IT, and Software & Product Development—and the Generative AI skills becoming essential for every role.

Faster, thinner: Colleges are swiftly trimming a B.A. degree to three years [Marcus]

On 03/18/2026, in 21st century, change, changing business models, colleges, cost of getting a degree, higher education, learning ecosystem, parents/guardians, reinvent, staying relevant, surviving, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

Faster, thinner: Colleges are swiftly trimming a B.A. degree to three years — from hechingerreport.org by Jon Marcus
Needing to fill seats and facing demands for faster routes to jobs, more colleges are shortening degree programs

That’s an option being made available by colleges and universities with astonishing speed — especially in the notoriously slow-moving world of higher education: an entirely new kind of bachelor’s degree muscling into the space between the traditional four-year version and the two-year associate degree. Three-year degrees have existed, but they simply jammed those 120 credits into fewer semesters.

At least one school, Ensign College in Utah, will convert all of its bachelor’s degrees into the new, reduced-credit, three-year kind, it announced in February. Nearly 60 other universities and colleges are planning, considering or have already launched them in some disciplines. States including Indiana have required or are considering requiring their public universities to add reduced-credit bachelor’s degrees. Even graduate and professional schools are being pressed to shorten the duration of degrees.

Even more than employers, consumers have lost patience with the time and expense it takes to get a four-year bachelor’s degree, according to the advocates and politicians pushing schools to offer them. More than half of students who start down the conventional four-year path today take even longer than four years, according to the Department of Education.

Also from Jon Marcus, see:

Behind ideological attacks on higher ed, surprising bipartisan reforms are happening— from hechingerreport.org by Jon Marcus
Long sought by both the right and left, some changes could protect consumers and lower costs

2026 Survey of College and University Presidents — from insidehighered.com, Liaison, & Jenzabar
Download and explore exclusive insights from the 2026 Survey of College and University Presidents to see how these campus leaders are responding to financial volatility, political interference, rapid advances in AI, and where they believe the biggest risks and opportunities lie as they look toward 2030.

In this year’s survey, presidents share perspectives on:

How presidents assess the second Trump administration’s impact on higher education
Which emerging or evolving educational models they plan to add or expand in the coming years
How effective they believe higher education has been in shaping national conversations arout AI
The issues presidents expect will have the greatest impact on higher education by 2030

Here is Brandon’s post out on linkedin:

Learning Ecosystems

Faster, thinner: Colleges are swiftly trimming a B.A. degree to three years [Marcus]

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