For many individuals in the 21st century, there is a believe that education is a means to prosperity. And for many, there is no doubt that education has proven to be a key for many individual’s success. Today’s “hot” roles in the fields of engineering and technology require a significant level of analytical skills and abstract thinking skills that can only be achieved through higher education.
Indeed, the demand for higher education continues to outstrip the ability to supply it further highlighting the strains that are being accentuated as global society continues to change rapidly. There is no doubt that higher education will be the lynchpin for providing both individual and societal opportunities in the 21st century. That being said, however, its current delivery method is creating gridlock and bottlenecks that are impeding opportunities rather than accentuating them.
There are a number of impediments that higher education is creating in the 21st century when it comes to providing individuals with opportunities to succeed. These impediments include:
(1) Financial Return On Investment: Particularly in the United States, the cost of higher education is a significant and dramatic hurdle for a significant portion of the population. With tuition costs alone in the tens of thousands of dollars and living expenses further adding to the financial burden, it is not surprising that many economists are worried that the next debt crisis will potentially come from student loans. Indeed, combined with wage stagnation and the ceaseless need for lifelong learning as technologies upend established processes on what seems like an unending basis, graduates seem to be in a constant state of perpetual debt.
This constant state of perpetual debt not only creates a ball and chain effect on individuals but on society as well. Individuals will be less inclined to take risks or pursue opportunities that might be a better fit for them as they prefer the stability of any position that will enable them to make some type of dent into their burdensome student loans. This risk aversion not only makes the individual poorer in the long run but also society poorer as who knows how many individuals have delayed making purchases such as homes or vehicles that could have contributed to driving overall economic growth a few basis points higher.
(2) Teaching To Process Rather Than Individual Growth: In an age of personalization and customization, higher education seems increasingly backward in its teaching of students. Students are still herded in large numbers into massive lecture halls, taught the same uniform knowledge set and forced to take exams that test for conformity rather than adaptability. All in all a very boring and soul draining experience.
While many would call this a “rite of passage”, the reality is that it is an impediment to providing students of any age the right tools they need to ensure they can succeed in today’s dynamic technology based economy. With processes in the real world constantly being modified on a daily basis, higher education needs to instill into students mental agility and flexibility that is required to survive both professionally and personally.
Indeed, the continuous retraining that we all must undertake no matter where we are in our career stage is critical to ensure we as individuals and as a society are positioned to take advantage of the next great opportunities that will come with the next technological advancement. While individuals will do their part by seeking out knowledge, higher education must do its part as well by ensuring that its teaching methodologies not only teach the appropriate knowledge but teach it in a way that encourages individual growth rather than taking an overly simplistic process oriented approach.
(3) Ignoring The Changing Reality: In many respects, the traditionalism that is steeped in higher education has proven to be beneficial over the past several centuries. It has enabled great scientific and philosophical advancements that potentially would have never been conceived if left to normal business or social processes or systems. The “white ivory tower” provides a place of solitude where individuals can feel free to think and deliberate instead of having to fulfill the incessant demands of daily life. While its benefits for intellectuals is not in question, its benefits for students in a changing economic and societal landscape is.
In an age of machine learning and artificial intelligence, there are increasing questions as to how we are educating the next generation of workers and who is responsible for it. Indeed, if today’s entry level positions (e.g. newspaper delivery person, cashier, etc.) are being eliminated in favor of automation and artificial intelligence, where are today’s high school students supposed to learn basic workplace skills (e.g. show up on time, don’t swear at your customers, etc.)?
Higher education will state that it is not their role to teach such basics and that they are there to only provide training concerning an individual’s ability to be mentally agile and adaptable but such statements ignore the reality of today’s economic and social systems. In order to enable individuals the opportunity to think and develop, they must be able to sustain themselves economically. One cannot think if they are starving or worried about where their next pay cheque is coming from.
If higher education in its current form is an increasing impediment to providing opportunities for individuals to achieve not only material benefit but non-personal (e.g. enlightenment) benefit what can be done? Unfortunately, the answers are not easy. From a strategic perspective, the changes that need to be executed are relatively simple but from an operational perspective they are exceedingly difficult.
The one biggest shift that we can implement in higher education is to make it cost effective and affordable for everyone. There is a reason that past generations of political leaders made primary and secondary school education mandatory and free for all. They knew that a highly educated workforce was critical to ensure continued economic growth and prosperity.
It was not just a more educated workforce that society benefited from but it was the scientific breakthroughs that were produced by higher education institutions that society benefited from as well. These breakthroughs enabled better production and improved the living conditions of all creating a virtuous cycle of improvement.
We’re again at a crossroads concerning higher education, its benefits to society and who pays for it. Unfortunately with the combination of increasingly complex technology requiring additional knowledge and expertise to operate and maintain along with a baseline educated workforce that now starts at high school, the bar has been raised for both individuals and society concerning what is the minimum required. Thus a critical question for society is who pays for education particularly higher education. Does it continue to be the individual, society or is a hybrid approach?
The current status quo of forcing the individual to solely pay for higher education is not only increasingly detrimental to the financial and non-financial opportunities for individuals, it is increasingly a societal problem as well. Not only is the high cost of student debt preventing individuals from fully participating in the economy but it is creating opportunity costs by creating risk aversion when increasingly individuals need to take more risk to thrive and survive in today’s complex and technology based economy.
Placing the sole burden on individuals concerning their higher education is not only increasingly unreasonable but it is not in line with the realities of knowledge development. At no other point in human history has the term “lifelong learning” taken a critical and important necessity for individuals and society.
The plain reality is the fact that we are in an age where knowledge is being updated on a continuous basis. New scientific and technological breakthroughs are occurring as human continues to make additional investments and push the boundaries of what we know thanks to increasing opportunities and resource availability. Unfortunately, though, higher education seems to be stuck in a time warp where knowledge and the ways knowledge is imparted is stuck in an ossified state.
It is increasingly apparent in today’s new global and technology based society that we need to develop a higher education path that emphasizes individualized lifelong learning that is flexible and up-to-date. With the changes that are occurring on a continuous basis, curriculum must be updated more frequently than every seven years. True some of the basic fundamentals may remain constant for decades if not centuries but other fields are continuously evolving such as artificial intelligence and machine learning are being continuously updated as they push their own nascent boundaries.
So what does this mean for higher education? It means that individuals should not have to (a) give up their professional or personal careers to gain the latest in knowledge and (b) not have to relearn knowledge that they may have acquired years earlier through formal or informal education. We need to start designing higher education paths that are customized to the abilities and knowledge of individuals and enable them to grasp the knowledge they want both from theoretical and practical perspectives.
The plain reality is that there are no easy solutions in our quest to reform higher education to ensure as many individuals have the opportunity to succeed in whatever path they choose. There will be continuous debate for years to come about how and why we must transform higher education but make no mistake something needs to be accomplished and relatively soon. The urgency is not just for the individuals who are buried under mountains of student debt but it is to ensure that society continues to benefit from the prosperity that a highly educated workforce can provide.
Leave a Reply