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Nearly 20 percent of Generation Z and young Millennials say they might choose not to attend college.
That was the big news in a survey conducted this summer by TD Ameritrade, the online brokerage. They see a college degree as perhaps not necessary for future jobs, and they’re worried about racking up student debt.
As a college president, this worries me. I know that that a college degree is a major predictor of future earnings. The most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that people with a bachelor’s degree earn about 65 percent more than those with only a high school diploma. I also know that, especially for first-generation students, a college degree can genuinely transform the trajectory—and in so doing, transform a family and even a community. I’ve dedicated my career to higher education because I know higher education makes a difference. I want to see as many young people as possible enrolling in college and earning a degree.
But this news also worries me because these young people have legitimate concerns. And we as educators need to acknowledge and address them.
College is expensive. It’s sometimes too traditional. It’s still often geared toward a population of 18- to 22-year-olds who spend four years in a residential setting. It’s not often enough tied to specific outcomes, and it doesn’t always make clear how it prepares students for the workforce.
That last part is critical. A major new study just out from the Strada Education Network and Gallup shows that people find their educations most worth the cost, and most valuable to their careers, when their coursework and programs were most directly tied to career preparation.
At Pace University, we’ve long focused on career preparation. We call our signature educational model the Pace Path, and it’s a customized plan for each student, designed to get them to graduation in four years with the skills they need to succeed in their chosen field. Even in fields that might not seem career-focused, we make sure to connect instruction back to the kinds of life and thinking skills that make people better employees and leaders.
A key part of the Pace Path is the combination of in-class instruction with hands-on, real-world experiences like internships, community service, or academic research. We know that the best learning happens when students can actually do the things they’re studying, and we know that we give our graduates the training they’ll need for a great first job that starts them on a great career.
So, we think we do a good job of showing how college pays off.
But, at the same time, we also know we must do more to meet students where they are. We need to make college accessible to older learners, people with busy schedules, people who may not be able to come to campus, people who are unable to complete a full degree in one go, people who might need a different credential than a full bachelor’s degree, like a certificate or badge.
That’s where there’s good news in the TD study. Close to 90 percent of Gen Z said they were considering an educational path other than a four-year degree directly after high school. And among young Millennials, about four in five said that, up from one in five two years ago. (Gen Z wasn’t surveyed in the 2017 study.)
At Pace, we’ve long offered online associate and bachelor’s degrees for certain students, and I’ve found those students’ stories to be deeply inspiring—they’re people with families, jobs, people who for whatever reason were unable to earn a bachelor’s degree after high school but stayed committed to education.
We’re working to expand those programs, and adding many more options. We’ll offer more fully-online programs, in-person programs, hybrid programs. We’ll offer undergraduate courses and graduate instruction. We’ll offer more degree programs, and we’ll offer badges and certificates. We’ll let people get the educations they need in times and places other than four years right after high school.
Today’s world is changing, fast. Students know that, and that’s what makes them wonder if the traditional version of college is right for them. But to be able to keep up with today’s accelerating pace of change, they’ll always need to know how to learn, how to think, how to communicate, and how to work with others. Those are the skills, more than any specific subject matter, that students learn in college. We need to make sure Gen Z—and everyone who comes after them—knows that, and we need to offer the flexibility for those students to get the education they need to get to where they want to be.
