Higher Ed Nostalgia | Rigor! (Part 2)
There’s a deeply rooted belief that rigor in higher education is the ultimate preparation for the workforce. But does this idea actually hold up under scrutiny?
Rigor is often portrayed as the pursuit of strict, challenging, and demanding standards. Many advocate for it as a means to prepare students for real-world challenges, but when we take a closer look, this belief starts to unravel. The reality is that academic rigor and the actual demands of the workforce are worlds apart.
Here’s a link to the Higher Education Nostalgia conversation that Joe and I had during one of our Mondays with Matt sessions.
The reality is that academic rigor and the actual demands of the workforce are worlds apart.
1. Academic Rigor vs. Real-World Challenges: Academic rigor tends to focus on theoretical knowledge, rigid assignments & schedules, and standardized assessment. In contrast, the workplace demands adaptability, creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving—often in unpredictable situations.
For example, while a student may be asked to memorize theories for an exam, in the real world, they're expected to apply concepts in dynamic, evolving contexts. This gap reveals that higher education's version of rigor doesn’t truly prepare students for the complexities of modern industry.
2. Efficiency Over Endurance: In the workforce, results and efficiency matter far more than the sheer amount of effort or time spent on a task. Higher education often rewards students for following rigid processes, even if those processes are inefficient.
Meanwhile, industry values those who can think critically and adapt quickly. When professors insist on outdated measures of rigor, they’re inadvertently promoting inefficiency— something that would be unsustainable in any business environment.
3. Arbitrary vs. Purposeful Challenges: Many academic tasks seem designed to test endurance rather than skill, ingenuity, or problem-solving ability. In contrast, industry challenges are purposeful and aimed at driving results and innovation.
For example, consider a student who spends hours crafting an essay to meet arbitrary formatting guidelines versus a professional who streamlines a process to save a company time and resources. The latter’s task is driven by a clear objective, while the former is often about jumping through hoops.
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4. Risk of Outdated Skills: The pace of change in today’s industries is rapid. When professors emphasize academic rigor as a path to readiness, they risk imparting outdated skills or knowledge that don’t align with current market demands.
Rather than preparing students with skills that are no longer relevant, higher education should be focusing on adaptability, lifelong learning, and the ability to navigate change—qualities that truly matter in today’s workforce.
5. Undermining the Joy of Learning: When rigor is equated with preparation, education risks becoming an endurance test, stripping away the joy and curiosity that should be at the heart of learning.
The workforce values individuals who bring fresh perspectives, who can innovate, and who think independently—traits that are often suppressed by an overly rigid academic environment.
In most industries, those who fail to adapt or innovate find themselves quickly left behind. Yet, higher education clings to outdated practices, insisting that students must endure arbitrary challenges to be prepared for the "real world." This rigidity is ironic when you consider that institutions themselves often struggle to embrace change.
Many defend higher education’s claim that rigor prepares students for "life," but who granted this authority?
Just because we’ve tied the value of a degree to capability doesn’t mean it’s the best measure of real-world skills. Can someone who has spent their life in academia, never working in industry, truly prepare others for it? It’s a valid question when many educators have never experienced the very demands they claim to prepare students for.
The workforce doesn’t reward people for the hours they put in or the hardships they endure; it rewards them for the value they bring and the results they produce. As an example, why should a student be commended for spending 40 hours on an arbitrary task, when advancements today mean that the same outcome could be achieved in quarter of hours with the same quality? This isn’t rigor; it’s inefficiency disguised as preparation.
If we are truly preparing students for life, higher education’s role must go beyond academic exercises. It should be about equipping students with real skills—fostering informed citizens, building community partnerships, and cultivating critical thinkers who can adapt to the diverse challenges of society. This means teaching students to solve problems, navigate complexities, and communicate effectively, not just putting them through endurance tests.
The real world requires thinkers who can adapt, innovate, and contribute meaningfully. Higher education’s responsibility is to create an environment that nurtures these qualities, rather than insisting on outdated measures of preparation that only serve to perpetuate unnecessary stress and hinder genuine growth.
Glad to see this. The next Faculty Approachability Project episode is going to talk about rigor as well, and how it can hinder organizational change and efforts to serve our students well.
Owner, Y-Europe Consulting (global citizens, youth & culture)
1 个月Interesting provocation that deserves some reflection on the alignment of teaching and learning processes and the assessment criteria and methods. If students are educated rigidly and assessed rigidly, that's fair. You practice mock tests and sit through the tests. But if they are educated with new methods responsive to societal needs but assessed rigidly with standardized tests and outdated criteria, then it will be counter effective in talent cultivation. Really smart and innovative students may drop out or end up with bad grades which reduce their employability. But eventually, innovative industry may also adapt and ignore university assessment or university qualifications by hiring drop-outs or ignoring the grades. I am wondering if there are proofs that conformist students with better grades tend to end up with better jobs than those who failed or dropped out nowadays? The ability of students to prevail in a rigid system and face the failure branded by an unfair assessment - called resilience - may be of equal importance in succeeding at less than innovative workplaces expecting innovative outputs.
Workday? Student | SIS Training & Education | Higher Education | Rescue Bunny Foster Parent
1 个月This article takes too high a view of industry and too low a view of higher education. In this article, rigor is defined two different ways and these definitions are not necessarily tied together, or dare I say, arbitrary. Education can be “challenging and demanding” and NOT reduced to “theoretical knowledge, rigid assignments, and schedules”. Furthermore, challenges and demands are appropriate for creating workforce-ready graduates. As for theoretical knowledge, rigid assignments, and schedules, which are described as “arbitrary” in the article, these are arguably appropriate qualities in certain academic fields, particularly those practicing the scientific process. I do enjoy this newsletter’s attempt to push the envelope and I also appreciate Beyond Academics’ attempt to ask difficult, provocative questions. But this article is hyperbolic and unnecessarily takes aim at the higher education community, particularly faculty.?