Who does need college anymore? About that book title … — from Education Design Lab
As you may know, Lab founder Kathleen deLaski just published a book with a provocative title: Who Needs College Anymore? Imagining a Future Where Degrees Won’t Matter.
Kathleen is asked about the title in every media interview, before and since the Feb. 25 book release. “It has generated a lot of questions,” she said in our recent book chat. “I tell people to focus on the word, ‘who.’ Who needs college anymore? That’s in keeping with the design thinking frame, where you look at the needs of individuals and what needs are not being met.”
In the same conversation, Kathleen reminded us that only 38% of American adults have a four-year degree. “We never talk about the path to the American dream for the rest of folks,” she said. “We currently are not supporting the other really interesting pathways to financial sustainability — apprenticeships, short-term credentials. And that’s really why I wrote the book, to push the conversation around the 62% of who we call New Majority Learners at the Lab, the people for whom college was not designed.” Watch the full clip
She distills the point into one sentence in this SmartBrief essay: “The new paradigm is a ‘yes and’ paradigm that embraces college and/or other pathways instead of college or bust.”
What can colleges do moving forward?
In this excellent Q&A with Inside Higher Ed, Kathleen shares her No. 1 suggestion: “College needs to be designed as a stepladder approach, where people can come in and out of it as they need, and at the very least, they can build earnings power along the way to help afford a degree program.”
In her Hechinger Report essay, Kathleen lists four more steps colleges can take to meet the demand for more choices, including “affordability must rule.”
From white-collar apprenticeships and micro-credential programs at local community colleges to online bootcamps, self-instruction using YouTube, and more—students are forging alternative paths to GREAT high-paying jobs. (source)
