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Thinking and Linking

California offers training for ‘stranded workers’

Joanne Jacobs

Aug 6, 2018
1 min

California offers training for ‘stranded workers’

California is moving ahead with an online college for “stranded workers,” reports Mikhail Zinshteyn on EdSource. It will offer short-term vocational certificates, but not degrees. The online college is being touted as another tool to develop the work skills of so-called 2.5 million “stranded workers,” people between the ages of 25 and 34 who have finished high school and lack a college degree or certificate but could benefit from additional training to progress professionally

Job hunting 101

Joanne Jacobs

Aug 4, 2018
2 min

Job hunting 101

Job hunting is a class at Skidmore, a liberal arts college in upstate New York, reports NPR’s Elissa Nadworny. Paul Calhoun, a business professor, worked with theatre professors to create Presenting the Brand Called Me. Over the 13 weeks, there’s some role-playing with improv — “Talk for a minute about anything — go!” There are dance classes, and a slew of guest speakers who talk about cover letters, resumes and personal branding. By the end of the course, students leave with

College, college, college — what about trades?

Joanne Jacobs

Apr 25, 2018
1 min

College, college, college — what about trades?

While U.S. students are told that a four-year college degree is the only route to success, employers are paying top dollar for those willing to learn skilled trades, writes Hechinger’s Jon Marcus. Garret Morgan, 20, quit college to train as an ironworker near Seattle. He earns $28.36 an hour, more than $50,000 a year, plus benefits, at job sites where he trains. “While a shortage of workers is pushing wages higher in the skilled trades, the financial return from a bachelor’s

From ‘early college’ to careers

Joanne Jacobs

Apr 24, 2018
2 min

From ‘early college’ to careers

uses job-market data to help students plan their futures, reports Catherine Gewertz in Education Week. Students at iLEAD Academy understand the regional job market, she writes. “They can tell you how much they’ll make as an entry-level robotics technician and whether the pay differential between an associate degree and a bachelor’s degree in that field justifies a four-year-college investment.” Superintendents of five districts near the Indiana border opened iLEAD as an “earl

Joanne Jacobs

Apr 19, 2018
1 min

Career-tech students work hard, learn ‘soft’ skills

“Students who take a lot of career-and-technical-education classes in high school are hard workers who are less likely than their peers to skip class,” according to an American Enterprise Institute study, reports Ed Week’s Catherine Gewertz. Career tech-ed students tend to score lower on reading and math tests, but have stronger “noncognitive” or “soft” skills, the study found. Graduation rates are higher for CTE concentrators. They tend to earn more in their mid-20s than cla

Degree inflation doesn’t pay

Joanne Jacobs

Feb 13, 2018
1 min

Degree inflation doesn’t pay

Now that unemployment is down, employers may think twice about degree inflation, writes Preston Cooper in Forbes. They can’t afford to be too picky. “Employers are seeking a bachelor’s degree for jobs that formerly required less education, even when the actual skills required haven’t changed or when this makes the position harder to fill,” reported Burning Glass in 2014. A Harvard Business School study 67 percent of job postings for supervisors of production workers require b

For most, AA degree leads to low-wage jobs

Joanne Jacobs

Feb 12, 2018
1 min

For most, AA degree leads to low-wage jobs

The cheapest route to a bachelor’s degree — in theory — is to live at home, go to a low-cost community college, earn an associate of arts (AA) degree, then transfer to a university. Dental hygienists, who usually have a two-year degree, average more than $70,000 a year. But many AA graduates never complete a bachelor’s degree, write Mark Schneider and Matthew Sigelman of American Enterprise Institute. With general-education credits but “without high-value, marketable skills,”

Help wanted: Need master’s in janitorial science

Joanne Jacobs

Jan 19, 2018
1 min

Help wanted: Need master’s in janitorial science

sheepskin effect” requires a master’s degree. “If trends continue, by 2025 we will be offering master’s degrees in janitorial science.” Yet “obtaining a master’s is not a surefire path to economic success,” he writes. In The Master’s as the New Bachelor’s Degree, Mark Schneider and Jorge Klor de Alva report that a master’s degree pays off in some fields, but not others. Philosophy master’s graduates in Colorado had annual median earnings under $30,000, while “area studies” ma

Against education

Joanne Jacobs

Dec 9, 2017
2 min

Against education

Most people don’t learn much in college beyond basic literacy and numeracy, writes Bryan Caplan in The Atlantic. A degree shows mastery of the hoop-jumping skills that employers favor. An economics professor, Caplan has written a book titled The Case Against Education. The vast majority of students are “philistines” with little interest in the life of the mind, writes Caplan, who calls himself a “cynical idealist.” Indeed, today’s college students are less willing than those

Play the college loan game

Joanne Jacobs

Oct 18, 2017
2 min

Play the college loan game

Which college should I attend? How much can I safely borrow? Should I take a half-time job or an unpaid internship? Join a fraternity or sorority? In playing Payback, a free web-based game, “students see running totals of their debt but can also track academic focus, the connections they’re making that could be useful later and their overall happiness — crucial factors in actually finishing college and graduating with a job that can help them repay their debt,” writes Ron Lie

Learn ‘agility’ to compete with robots

Joanne Jacobs

Oct 17, 2017
1 min

Learn ‘agility’ to compete with robots

While schools struggle to teach basic 20th-century skills, 21st-century students will need to compete with robots for work in The Age of Agility, warns a new report by America Succeeds. “The paper echoes growing fears of a ‘fourth Industrial Revolution’ that could shunt aside blue- and white-collar workers alike in favor of ever-more-capable machines,” writes Kevin Mahnken on The 74. Nearly half of all American jobs could be threatened by computerization within the next 20 y

Learn now, pay later

Joanne Jacobs

Jul 18, 2017
2 min

Learn now, pay later

Instead of paying for college, students can learn now, pay later at San Francisco’s Make School, reports Emily DeRuy in the San Jose Mercury News. Last year, after several years of offering short computer-science courses, Make School launched a two-year Product College, which combines project-based classes with internships at Silicon Valley companies. Students who opt for an income-share agreement pay 25 percent of their pre-tax salary to the school for three and a half years

After high school, what’s next?

Joanne Jacobs

Jun 25, 2017
1 min

After high school, what’s next?

In Out of High School, Into Real Life, the New York Times profiles recent graduates who aren’t enrolling in college. Many seem quite sensible: They’re not good students and wary of student loans. One girl rejected college scholarships to enlist in the Marine Corps. One boy will work for the family business, another will train as a welder. Some of the 18-year-olds clearly are headed for a low-wage future. But if the girl who loves doing hair and make-up went to college, how ma

Gift for grads: Digital clean-up service

Joanne Jacobs

Jun 17, 2017
1 min

Gift for grads: Digital clean-up service

Looking cool — or stupid? Getting ready for college now means cleaning up your online image, writes Taylor Lorenz on Mashable. Many high school seniors have been online for years, focused on impressing their friends, not admissions officers or employers. Thirty-five percent of college admissions officers say they check applicants’ social media postings, according to a Kaplan Test Prep survey. “Of those, 42 percent said that what they found had a negative impact on the student

Job market is strong for ’17 college grads

Joanne Jacobs

Jun 10, 2017
1 min

Job market is strong for ’17 college grads

A new survey shows 74 percent of employers plan to hire recent college graduates this year, up from 67 percent last year. Thirty-nine percent will pay a starting salary of $50,000 or more. However, 23 percent will pay new graduates less than $30,000. Majors in the most demand: Business – 30 percent Engineering – 26 percent Computer and information sciences – 23 percent Engineering technologies – 16 percent Communications technologies – 13 percent Math and statistics – 11 perc

Who will work? Education, automation and jobs

Joanne Jacobs

Feb 5, 2017
2 min

Who will work? Education, automation and jobs

Robots — artificial intelligence technology — will take up to 47 percent of U.S. jobs in the next few decades, predicts a White House report released last month. The least educated will be the most vulnerable: Self-driving vehicles are expected to replace 2.2 million to 3.1 million people with driving jobs. Investing in education could keep the American Dream alive, writes Drew Hanson in Forbes. Retraining displaced workers isn’t enough. he writes. “We must improve secondary

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