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A new study found that not one state in the United States has enough adult workers who have earned some sort of postsecondary degree to meet its workforce demands. Even those states that graduate a high number of workers with degrees are projected to fall well short of their expected needs by 2025. The College Opportunity Risk Assessment , a state-by-state comparison of risks to higher educational opportunity from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education (Penn GSE), also noted that even states making the most per-student investments are struggling to produce enough graduates. “The world has changed, but our public policies haven’t,” said Joni Finney, professor of practice at Penn GSE and director of the Institute for Research on Higher Education. “We’re still touting the successes of a system designed in the wake of World War II to allow 30% to 40% of the country, drawn mostly from white, affluent backgrounds, to earn a college degree, even though that system now l...

About a third of college students leave school feeling unprepared for the workplace, according to a new survey . One way institutions can help is by making officials and faculty aware that initiating contact with students about their career readiness makes a big difference. Researchers found that students who had a conversation with at least one instructor or staff member were more likely to feel ready to begin their careers. About 40% of those students said they were confident they would graduate with the necessary skills to be successful in the job market. When faculty or staff failed to initiate the career conversation, just 25% of students said they were convinced they would find success in the job market. “We tend to think in higher ed, that’s the job of career services,” said Carol D’Amico, executive vice president of mission advancement and philanthropy for Strada Education. “Well, we learned that most students don’t access the career services department, so it’s really everybod...

Over the last five years, massive open online courses (MOOCs) have become on-demand sessions that allow participants to learn at their own pace. Changes were also made that allowed providers to monetize the process by charging for certification. While a poll from Class Central, a MOOC discovery platform, found that 64% of respondents said they preferred the changes, there was also a cost. MOOCs are no longer attracting large numbers of students, and the learners taking the classes aren’t interacting on discussion forums. “These days, most MOOC providers let learners start courses whenever they like (or on a biweekly or monthly basis as Coursera does),” Dhawal Shah, founder of Class Central, wrote in a column for EdSurge . “As a result, the forums are far less vibrant and informative than they were in the early days.” To find a happy medium, Shah is proposing a MOOC semester offering a limited catalog of instructor-led courses with a fixed schedule and soft deadlines. The selected MOOCs...

A new survey by Phi Delta Kappa (PDK) International found that the American public wants schools to teach their children career skills and to limit standardized testing. A majority of Americans also oppose using public funds to send students to private schools. According to the 2017 Poll of the Public’s AttitudeToward the Public Schools , 82% of respondents support job or career skill classes, even if it means spending less time on traditional academics. More than 85% said schools should offer certificate or licensing programs that help students land jobs after graduation, while 82% said technology and engineering classes should be part of the curriculum. However, just 42% said standardized testing was important and 52% oppose school voucher programs. That figure rises to 61% when religious schools are mentioned. “These and other results suggest that some of the most prominent ideas that dominate current policy debates—from supporting vouchers to emphasizing high-stakes tests—are out ...

The dark web, a place inhabited by people looking for ways to profit from selling malware, poses a real threat to higher education . The Digital Citizens Alliance recently found nearly 14 million email addresses and passwords for faculty, staff, students, and alumni from U.S. colleges and university, 79% of them added to the dark web last year. “Because [higher-education institutions] have large-capacity Internet connection links that served all the students and large-capacity servers that are designed for many users, they are almost always on and attackers never have to worry if a part of their infrastructure will be available for use,” Will Glass, a senior analyst for the cybersecurity firm FireEye, wrote in the Alliance study . The first line of defense is better passwords. The report noted that too many young people use the same password for multiple services, making it easier for hackers. Colleges and universities are also installing security systems that automatically block users...