Can U.S. Higher Ed make a better business case for Americans?

College enrollments are down, and it is not an easy fix. Ever since I left Lumina Foundation, I have seen these discussions about American higher education from some distance. During my eight years at the foundation, I learned from the best, and yet I remain humble about the daunting task of understanding the complexities of colleges and universities in the U.S.??

I have always believed that institutions of higher learning provide students with a lot more than a collection of grades.

Still, I also think that American colleges and universities should do a better job making the business case to society, especially to U.S. residents, exposed to a constant barrage of critical views about college education's value vs. price.?

My passion has always been to help people maximize their potential. For the past two years, I had worked as an independent executive and career coach, helping seasoned executives, middle managers, and recent undergraduates and graduates find jobs, change careers, or get promoted.?

Let me talk about two of my young career coaching clients based in the U.S. (fictitious names, of course): Jack is a 24-year-old undergraduate of a tech-focused East Coast university. Mira is a 31-year-old graduate of a Midwest public university. They were struggling with job applications and constant rejections and reached out for guidance. Thankfully, Jack is about to get a job, and Mira found one a few months ago.

They are great students and had good grades in both cases, but their instinct was to make a resume with the Education section on top. I told them that employers want to see Skills first and that Education is almost the last section.

It was not a surprise that both struggled highlighting skills they had acquired during their time at these great institutions. When we started looking for jobs, after a few iterations of resume writing and advice on the importance of custom cover letters, they could not easily relate to what employers post in their job descriptions. It is not that employers do the best job writing relevant job descriptions either, but students are dealing with that reality every day. Job search is the loneliest and most stress-inducing activity any individual must face when they are unemployed (especially after the type of financial commitment required to complete a college-level degree).?

?I can only think how amazing (and more productive) it would have been for Jack and Mira to have a digital wallet with verified competencies and skills earned inside and outside the walls of their institutions during their higher education journey.

Fortunately, this technology is now available, and colleges do not have to change the way they deliver their instruction. It is the magic of very granular mapping back to learning outcomes and making sure faculty have space and autonomy to decide how students should demonstrate what they know, understand, and are able to do.

Back in 2016, I talked about "portable digital learning records" as a needed innovation in education. Now I have been hired by a company that does precisely (CLR or Comprehensive Learner Records). The language of competencies and skills must be spoken by undergraduates and graduates when they leave. The institution should facilitate real-time and personalized advice to students while still in college about what they can do to reduce their individual skills gap, not "society's skills gap" big talk.??Jack and Mira's skills had to match with the type of jobs they were targeting. Even if they are entry-level jobs, when you compete with 500 other applicants, speaking "skills and competencies" gets your application at the top of the pile.

Once institutions start providing information and advice to learners on the skills and competencies they are acquiring or could acquire while in college, the conversation about employment becomes more natural and actionable by both students and their professors.

To me, as a son of educators, there is no doubt in my mind that college made a significant difference in my ability to communicate, think critically, work in teams and solve problems. It is just that nobody tracked that back to my Algebra 101 class. There were no means at the time.??Now there are, and if colleges and universities want to see enrollments go up, they must continually find ways to show how they add value to students in ways that people outside those walls can understand, including the learners themselves.

#BeWise and help students achieve fluency in "competencies" language while still in college and provide them with a validated portable record of their skills, not just their grades. Jobs are hard to find otherwise.