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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Just read "Who Needs College Anymore? Imagining a Future Where Degrees Won’t Matter" from Harvard Press, by Kathleen deLaski. I will paste the description below, but it really underscored how the whole system preys upon upward-mobility-seeking, striving parents who are bedazzled and deceived by rankings, relying on such soulless statistics (Naviance!) to try to contrive their children to fit a completely unworkable and soon-to-be irrelevant mold. Just reading this board, the anxiety spills off the page -- and I feel it too!! -- and I am seeing how sad, pointless, and hollow it is. I would urge any parent to take a step back and think critically about what you and your child are getting out of this rat race and why you care so very much about a brand-name degree. The world is changing. The cost of a degree is untenable. The ROI is lacking. I am not a p.r. shill, just a parent slowly waking up to the fact that we're doing wrong by our kids (and ourselves) by fixating on this stuff so very much. Description below.

In the wake of declining US university enrollment and widespread crises of confidence in the value of a college degree, deLaski urges a mindset shift regarding the learning routes and credentials that best prepare students for success after high school.

The work draws on a decade of design-thinking research from the nonprofit Education Design Lab as well as 150 interviews of educational experts, college and career counselors, teachers, employers, and learners. DeLaski applies human-centered design to higher education reform, engaging the perspective of end users to search for better solutions. She highlights ten top principles based on user feedback and considers how well they are currently being enacted by colleges.

In particular, she urges institutions to better attend to the needs of new-majority learners, often described as nontraditional students, including people from low- or moderate-income backgrounds, people of color, first-generation students, veterans, single mothers, rural students, part-time attendees, and neurodivergent students. She finds ample opportunity for colleges to support learners via alternative pathways to marketable knowledge, including bootcamps, skills-based learning, and apprenticeships, career training, and other types of workplace learning. This work suggests innovation as a means of evolution.[/quote]

“The world needs ditch diggers, too.”  - Ted Knight  
Caddyshack (c) 1980[/quote]

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