Since the 2007-09 Great Recession and continuing through the current pandemic, college students' anxiety over their future employment prospects has been rampant. As a result, one of the most common questions students and their parents ask campus career counselors, faculty advisors, and other educators is "What can be done with a degree in the…

Because of the move toward automation and a more knowledge-based economy, it is imperative that colleges and universities develop graduates who have the capacity for continued growth--graduates with a foundation of skills and knowledge that can be built upon for future employment. A liberal arts education can expose students to depth in an area…

With the rising costs of participating in higher education; uncertain economies buffeted by technological, structural, and political forces; and shifting perceptions of the usefulness of credentials once obtained, the purpose of college has become a popular topic for everything from sound bites and screeds to serious studies. In our contemporary…

The collaboration between the career services office and the general education faculty at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia began with storytelling. In fall 2014, while teaching a course on how people create and use narratives, Meriel Tulante (one of the authors of this article) approached Tracy DePedro, Jefferson's director of career…

In the midst of the worst public health crisis to hit the nation in a hundred years, and in a moment of racial reckoning, widespread economic uncertainty, and geopolitical instability, it may seem strange to be thinking about a Second American Century. But many times in the past, when faced with great threats and challenges, the nation has created…

Higher education broadly and liberal arts institutions specifically are experiencing a range of critical challenges, not the least of which are shifts in what today's undergraduates choose for their major. For instance, data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) reveal that, since 2008, there has been a precipitous…

Clifford Adleman begins this piece with his statement that the foremost marker of student outcomes in higher education, for the enterprise, for the commentariat, and for legislators, has traditionally been institutional graduation rates. He goes on to note that whatever one thinks of the various ways that marker has been produced, it has now faded…

The Association of American Colleges and Universities' (AAC&U's) new five-year strategic plan for 2018-22, "We ASPIRE: Advancing Student Performance through Integration, Research, and Excellence," was officially launched at the association's 2018 annual meeting in Washington, DC, at the end of January. Reaffirming a dedication to…

Technology is a catalyst that is reconfiguring every profession, from finance to medicine to media. Old verities about "useful" skills are disappearing into the cloud. Many students give the existential question "What do I want to be?" a simple response: "Employed." It is not obvious what skills that will require in a…

It is perhaps more evident now than at any other time in human history that current technologies are racing ahead while skills and organizations are lagging behind. In the context of such uncertainty, Maxine Greene's and Theodore Sizer's ideas about empowering students to develop resiliency, perspective, judgment, and flexibility, as well…

September marked the tenth anniversary of the release of "A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of US Higher Education," the report of the Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education, also known as the Spellings Commission. Blue ribbon panels rarely say much that is new or stimulate much sustained attention,…

The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) has embarked on a sustained program to enhance the quality of student learning on campuses, while also supporting AAC&U members' efforts to bring liberal education to all sectors of society. This commitment to quality and equity in service to democracy forms the basis for…

Our current higher education institutional structures have become so ingrained that many of these structures have gone unquestioned for more than a century. While it is true that we have created, to a significant degree, new "functions" for higher education, many of our "structures" endure. Two major disruptors--the influence…

Soon after the Great Recession of 2008 hit this manufacturing stalwart of the upper Midwest, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker began proclaiming that the skills gap--the idea that plenty of well-paying jobs existed, but the educational system was failing to provide employers with skilled workers--was the primary cause of high unemployment and a…

For much of the past century, scholars have questioned the viability and sustainability of liberal arts colleges, and empirical research suggests that the number of liberal arts colleges has declined in recent decades. In one study, of 212 colleges identified as liberal arts colleges in 1990, only 130 continued to serve primarily a nonprofessional…