As Published in Business 2 Business, August 2009

The State of Education: This Ain't Your Father's School

By Ira S Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions

This ain’t your father’s school anymore!

Success in today’s knowledge and innovation economy depends on education and skills development beyond high school. And yet there are currently 75 million Americans between the ages of 18 and 64 who still have no postsecondary credentials and who are not currently enrolled in a course of education.

Despite the growing importance of postsecondary education to our economic well being, America is falling behind on this crucial issue. While the proportion of individuals enrolling in college in the United States has grown since the 1970s, the proportion of students receiving diplomas has declined slightly during the same period. Currently, fewer than 60 percent of students entering 4-year institutions earn bachelor’s degrees and barely one-fourth of community college students complete any degree within six years of college entry.

According to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, in 2005, the United States now ranks 10th in the college attainment of its 25- to 34-year-old population, down from 3rd in 1991. The OECD also notes that the United States now has the highest college dropout rate among developed countries.

In today’s economy, an effective postsecondary education system is a national competitive advantage. Postsecondary education is correlated with higher personal incomes, productivity increases, economic growth, and increased civic participation and quality of life. An effective postsecondary education system must deliver quality, flexible learning experiences leading to credentials that are a foundation for personal growth and career success.

A Center for American Progress report titled “Working Learners,” released in June, exposes how much change is really needed.  Working learners are older, independent students who attend school in non-traditional ways, are less likely to apply for financial aid, get less financial assistance when they do apply, and are less likely to complete any kind of degree within six years. 

The problem extends beyond post-secondary education. Many employers are reporting that postsecondary graduates are not ready, with the requisite skills, for their roles in a knowledge-intensive, innovation economy. Employers in a 2008 Society of Human Resources Management survey revealed that over 40 percent of college graduates and over 64 percent of high school graduates don’t have the necessary applied skills for success. The transition between work and learning is both an acute and ongoing challenge for today’s students.

In what has been called a “silent epidemic,” America is also in the throes of a persistent high school dropout crisis.  When a high school diploma is a critical first step for avoiding poverty, and a college degree is a prerequisite for a good-paying job, the costs to dropping out are devastating to both the individual and society. 

In what seems like a perfect storm of events, several of them a longtime in the making, America's higher education system has a workforce problem. Technology use and team-based service delivery and practices necessary for innovation are compressing work and learning, requiring that students develop applied skills faster and are able to learn continuously on the job. And yet students are not ready for college, colleges are not ready for students, and public policy, long focused on making college more affordable, is not yet ready to take on the complex challenge of ensuring people successfully complete college degrees and transition into rewarding careers, as opposed to just getting in.

The dropout crisis impacts all of America.  In 2007, an astounding 16.0% of persons between 16 and 24 years of age (nearly 6.2 million people) were high school dropouts.  While Pennsylvania had the second lowest number of dropouts by percentage when compared to the 12 largest states, over 196,000 of its residents (12.5%) between ages 16 and 24 dropped out. The lifelong economic impact from dropping out is shocking.  Over a working lifetime, high school dropouts are estimated to earn $400,000 less than those graduated from high school. By contrast, adults with high school diplomas contribute major fiscal benefits to the country over their lifetime.  The combined payment of payroll, federal, and state income taxes could amount to more than $250,000 per graduated student.  The number is even higher for workers with post secondary credentials.

Students, whether because of a lack of academic preparation in high school; a lack of flexible financial tools to meet their education/work/life needs; or a lack of reliable information and support in making wise career choices, wide disparities in workforce readiness exist, particularly along racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic lines.

In short, as customers, America’s students are not now ready to fully and successfully participate in and manage their postsecondary experience.

Consequently in the 21st century, workforce development should not be about skills training alone but also the attainment of postsecondary credentials to improve working learners’ ability to participate in today’s dynamic knowledge economy.

Mickey Baines sees a significant shift from students coming to Albright College to get a degree for a job to becoming more effective at building their careers. Nancy Rockey, Harrisburg Area Community College’s Interim Vice President of the Harrisburg Campus, agrees. She believes education is shifting away from just occupational training to “being flexible and adaptable enough to provide students with transferrable skills.”  Baines, the Director of Albright’s Accelerated Degree Program says, “Students come to us wanting a piece of paper but recognize there is more.  Ninety-five percent of the students receiving a certificate stay to get a full degree.”

America’s colleges, in particular its public two- and four-year institutions, are being asked to educate a far more varied group of college goers. This new type of student - the “working learner” - is changing the nature of the postsecondary educational experience, with education stretched out over longer periods of episodic attendance and more varied paths to degree completion.

Students come to college with widely divergent experiences in secondary schools and are more mobile, older, and more likely to combine work and school than ever before, thus reshaping the demand for postsecondary education with a drive for more customized experiences. With funding decreases and regulations and systems designed to meet a different era’s student needs, postsecondary institutions must change to meet new needs. 

As this publication has done every summer for the last few years, we checked in with local schools and colleges to see how they are responding to this workforce skills crisis and what they are doing or planning differently. As is often the case, our region offers the business community a robust and progressive post-secondary educational system – a ray of sunshine and a glimmer of hope in an otherwise gloomy national forecast.  Local postsecondary institutions appear ready to deliver quality, flexible education that leads to both college and career success.

When it comes to convenience and flexibility, very few working learners can take two or four years out of their lives to achieve a degree.  Traveling to a traditional campus, while juggling family and work obligations and then sitting in a classroom for several hours, is out of the question. Nearly every institution located in our region offers a myriad of choices for students – from the traditional campus setting to online learning to off-campus locations.

“Central Pennsylvania College understands the challenge a busy working adult faces,” says Shannon Rohrer, Continuing Education Director. With locations in Harrisburg, Lancaster and the Lehigh Valley, the college offers accelerated 11-week terms, allowing students to go to school year-round and obtain their degrees faster than at most schools.  Classes are offered during the day and evening, in online and blended formats.

Reading Area Community College is even more aggressive.  It offers what John Devere, VP of Workforce Development/Community Education, calls “rolling registration with flexible scheduling.” In other words, “students can come and go as their schedule permits.  Students can sit at a computer and learn through a series of multi-media exercises.  When ready, they take a test on the computer and after they pass, they schedule hands-on training with an instructor.”

The program is now being expanded to include online learning as well. “Students can now participate from the convenience of their home or office, wherever they might be. Working learners with family and other responsibilities not longer have to drive to school to get work-ready. When it’s time for hands-on training, they call the instructor and schedule it.”

To make education more accessible, Immaculata University currently has thirty one off-campus sites located at businesses, hospitals, nursing homes, military bases, community colleges, and high schools. According to Associate Dean Dr. M. Agnes Timothy, Immaculata was one of the first in the Delaware Valley Area to recognize the needs of this population.  As early as the 1970s, certificate programs were designed to give adults an opportunity to obtain skills in accounting, business administration, and management.  It now offers four of its seven major degree programs online. “While the number of students online is small compared to the number being served off-site,” says Timothy,” credits in the online program have almost doubled this year.”

Harrisburg Area Community College now serves an eight-county area in Central Pennsylvania with five regional campuses as well as numerous community locations in each of the regions.  Like Immaculata and many other local colleges, HACC offers both credit and noncredit courses onsite at business locations.  What’s more, courses are delivered 24/7 online and face-to-face to accommodate working learners’ schedules and shift work.

Technology has also changed how and when classes and training is delivered.  Nearly all schools are using online delivery systems such as Blackboard, ANGEL (which just recently was purchased by Blackboard), and SMART. While these systems now include multi-media, most instructors and professors are still using these technologies in a traditional sense – posting assignments and using discussion boards. Their utilization and how they are used are anything but “homogenous,” says Dr. Victor Desantis, who serves as Millersville Dean of Graduate Studies. “While a few professors are still dipping their toes in the ‘online’ waters, several of our professors found Blackboard too rigid and have moved onto exploring other online media.”

Millersville is not alone at using online learning technologies. Students enrolled at any of the local Penn State campuses can join classmates from all 50 states and more than 40 countries on the Penn State World. Karen Sheehe, Director of Penn State-The Lancaster Center, describes the World Campus as just another campus in the Penn State system.  The Penn State University website, in fact, describes this online distance learning venue as its 25th campus.  Students can access graduate, undergraduate, and certificate programs anytime, anywhere.

A few faculty members at several of the colleges have even gone out of this world to get students engaged in the world of Second Life. While no schools are offering entire programs in this virtual community based on game simulation technology, a few instructors on Penn State’s World Campus use Second Life as “core components of their courses,” says Carol McQuiggan.  She is Senior Instructional Designer for The Faculty Center for Teaching & Instructional Technology at Penn State Harrisburg.

According to McQuiggan, “Dr Gloria Clark uses Second Life in her Spanish classes to visit Spanish-speaking countries and experiences. Students then write about different destinations and their experiences, all in Spanish.”  Dr. Clark actually has a hacienda on Penn State’s Second Life island, decorated with Spanish artifacts, where she holds virtual classes and meeting with colleagues and students from around the world.  She now is designing a literature course for delivery in Second Life.

While flexibility and convenience have been significantly reduced as obstacles to securing post-secondary credentials, affordability is still troublesome for many working learners.  While the return on investment of post-secondary education is well-documented, the up-front cost is still a very high hurdle.  Paying for a full-time semester at community college or even $300 in tuition for one course competes with paying for living expenses and raising a family. Costs for books, transportation, and childcare only add to the bills.

The “Working Learners” report finds that financial support for working learners falls woefully short.  Many of the funding programs were established when students earned their credentials in the traditional sense – they moved from high school to college and completed their schooling in four years.  Even the very popular Pell Grant program doesn’t help the student who can only afford to take one course per semester or doesn’t meet the low-income qualifications. A single, working learner Pell Grant recipient earning $30,000 or less can be required to pay at least 30 percent of their gross earnings for postsecondary education.  While working learners with children receive more favorable treatment, other restrictions and personal responsibilities make it difficult to participate in advancing their education. And few if any subsidy or loan programs, with the exception of employer-funded training and tuition reimbursement, help the working learner seeking a certificate or taking non-credit courses. 

It’s even more difficult for adult students wanting to pursue post-baccalaureate degrees. “It’s disappointing to me that graduate financial aid for education has been more rigid than undergraduate,” DeSantis said. “Many scholarships and grants don’t exist at graduate level. Most use employer based financial aid which has regrettably been cut back or eliminated during the recession.”

Rockey, who also serves as HACC Vice President of Development, is more optimistic. “HACC is fortunate to have a The HACC Foundation where a great deal of funds are used for scholarships that address part-time as well as full-time students.”  Following a major gift campaign, HACC set up two special funds: one to improve access to education and the other for workforce development. Both funds will help working learners pay for credit and noncredit courses. Central Penn adult students can apply for scholarships through the Central Pennsylvania College Education Foundation.  And Rohrer adds, “Every incoming student receives a $100 book voucher.”

“Penn State,” says Sheehe, “also recognizes the financial challenges that adult non-traditional learners students face.  Penn State has created an adult learner advocacy group to help find and develop financial aid solutions.

Another problem facing experienced workers who lack post-secondary credentials is credibility. Many working learners who have received useful and relevant training over their work years have little to show for it.  Up to this point on-the-job experience has not translated into the post-secondary credentials which are necessary to open new career opportunities or advance up the organizational ladder. Adult learners who completed non-credit courses and gained valuable work experience hit a “credential ceiling.” But that too is changing for the better.

Central Penn, in addition to accepting transfer credits for coursework from accredited colleges and schools, also accepts credits for military and work experience. HACC gives credit to non-traditional students for “lifelong learning/experience.”

RACC has begun to address that problem too in its advanced manufacturing systems technology programs. Graduates from the certificate program receive 9 credit skills which can be converted into 11 credits toward an associate degree in mechotronics, a program combining several disciplines in engineering.

Desantis believes affordability isn’t the biggest obstacle, at least for graduate-level adult learners. “Our students tell us tell us the most overriding concern for the majority of students is time, even more than convenience and cost.”  To accommodate the busy schedules, Millersville offered its first Masters program based on the “Executive MBA” model.  They condensed the traditional 35 contact hours each semester in their Masters in Gifted Education program into 1 weekend per month. Millersville has also begun to offer graduate programs of shorter duration and sharper focus.  Students can receive a graduate level certificate demonstrating completion of 12 to 15 hours in a program instead of the traditional 36 credits or more required for a Masters degree. The student can later receive some credit toward a Masters degree if he or she chooses to continue.

             
RACC has begun to offer short term careers training – 6 weeks to 6 months programs - that prepare students for healthcare and office technology jobs. In the past many of these programs took 1 or more years to complete. These include phlebotomy, certified nurse assistants, dental assisting, medical billing and others.

Alternatively, Central Penn gives adult students the option to “stop out” for up to four terms (one year) with no penalty upon their return to help them through a temporary crisis such as an illness,, financial hardship, or termination from work. It has been particularly helpful for several students during the recession.

Change is clearly needed in our educational system to bring the 75 million potential working learners the skills they and our economy need as well as allow those with the credentials to continue their learning. In today’s world and moving forward, working learners will be juggling work and learning over much of their working lives.

It is clear from my interviews that many of the schools in our region have learned a valuable lesson from Pogo: “I have seen the enemy and it is us.”  They recognize the need to change, the need to adapt, and the need to flex to a changing workforce and dynamic economy. They are responding with new curriculum and accelerated schedules; delivery systems from traditional classrooms to virtual meetings in Second Life; and innovative approaches for converting non-credit courses and work experience into post-secondary credentials.

If improving the credentials of working and adult learners is the key to ensuring the U.S. economy remains globally competitive in the 21st century, our local colleges and universities are doing their fair share to ensure that Central and Southeastern Pennsylvania continue to be an integral engine for sustainable growth.

About the author

As president of Success Performance Solutions, Ira S Wolfe helps organizations find and hire the right employees and identify high-potential leaders. He speaks nationwide on hiring, workforce trends, managing the generations in a presentation titled Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization.