Education: It's Broke, Fix It.

It's one of those mornings where you read something, and all you want to do is respond the moment you finish reading. Though I wandered around for a bit first, muttering my responses to my cats. Eventually I found myself coming to LinkedIn instead.

This is the article that revved me up before my morning coffee today. Of course, it helped that it was near and dear to my recent thoughts on education, and it starts to address some very real issues, the closed college. While the opening up of college addresses a real problem, relevancy, it doesn't touch on the tandem problems that will still exist once beyond opening up colleges: affordability and job accessibility.

1) Affordability

Once you have opened up colleges, the cost, at least in the US, is astronomical. Great! You have relevant education that most Americans can't afford. Also, the job market isn’t so much about skills as it is perception of skills. It's like looking great on paper, but in practice, not so much. Students can gain all the "real world" experience they want in college, but a lot of employers will not look at experience unless it expresses itself through a very specific, targeted types of skill (Brigette Hyacinth posted recently about transferable skills vs specific skills). Which, fantastic for them, they will have the degree, and they'll get an entry level job (because Degree tends to win the race for employability), but they'll have to spend decades paying back their student loans, but their employers won't pay them nearly enough to help pay it back early. Onto the next rabbit hole!

2)Job Accessibility

Let's look at the flip side of this article, even if you gain “data literacy” skills through a formalized degree program, as a recent graduate you’ll struggle to find work because you lack experience. Which, this article does address, but internships/apprenticeship is another discussion. What about the person who cannot afford this new open college format? The one who has a college degree will always have a leg up. As a person in the workforce without a degree, you’ll struggle because you lack perceived credentials, a degree. Even if you've gone through less standardized routes and have credentials in lieu of a degree, the degree opens more doors. Welcome to the problem that exists for 67% of Americans that do not have a degree.

The non-degreed individual is increasingly easier to find. I conducted a lovely little experiment last night, took a very biased sample of the population available to me. I was at a table where out of the 6 people, and after polling them, only 1 had a bachelor's degree, and 1 a graduate degree, the 4 remaining were either certified through other technologies or currently on non-degreed education paths.

The entire system is broken, from higher education all the way through the hiring process in the job market. This problem will not be solved until skills and credentials beyond formalized education degrees are accepted, or colleges provide affordable, relevant education paths. More individuals are flocking to the single best source of education available: online.

Digital education isn’t going away. Self-paced education is available in droves, through non-degreed avenues as long as you have a computer or access to one (libraries are your friends!). While this article attempts to draw parallels to the online community through reddit, it misses the mark by ignoring the additional problems that exists beyond opening college, affordability and accessibility to the job market for ALL. Until then, many will self-educate. I'm self-educater, you?