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The Vocational Side of Postsecondary Education
November 30, 2007
Watson Scott Swail, President & CEO, Educational Policy Institute
An article from this morning’s Chronicle of Higher Education discussed a new study conducted by the University of Washington about the “uncertain early career prospects” among social science doctorates. In brief, the report found that Ph.D. graduates in social science are having trouble getting jobs in the real world. Thus, there is problem between the job market and the postsecondary education system. No kidding.
This is an ongoing discussion in academic and the business world about the purpose of higher education, and this obviously isn’t just an issue for the social sciences. Is higher education for vocational purposes or for the enlightenment of mankind? It all depends on one’s viewpoint.
The history of higher education points to higher education as a place of “higher learning.” But over the course of the 20th and now the 21st centuries, we have, at least from a US and Canadian perspective (and arguably in Australia and Europe), moved to a system that is trying to be vocational.
We must separate this issue into a few categories because “higher education” is one term for a large system of postsecondary education. The two-year or community college systems have always been more vocationally oriented. From machine shop training to business accounting, most aspects of this level are to be directly transferrable to the workforce. At the four-year or university level, this is where the shift has largely been actualized. Surely, higher education has always prepared students for the workforce, but some more directed than others. For instance, the sciences are an easy example: biologists are biologists; chemists are chemists. They graduate and look for work in those areas. In business schools or faculties of commerce, there is a definitive linkage between those degree programs and the workforce. But there are many grey areas, such as the arts, where English lit and other areas are not directly connected with a simple vocation. Yes, they are to a degree, and we will all agree that someone who undertakes an arts curriculum certainly has some critical thinking skills (hopefully) that are useful in a variety of vocations. I think it is important, for what it's worth.
But there are two arguments here. Are universities (especially) doing enough to link their studies with the needs of society and the workforce? And the alternative point of view: are they doing too much? Regarding the former, the past 30 years certainly illustrate the move, especially by business schools, to attempt to create courses and degree programs (remember the MBA onslaught of the 1980s; now, who cares?) for professionals. On the other argument, if universities chase the changing vocational environment around do they risk being “all over the place,” with regard to their curriculum and offerings?
This is a complex issue for universities, because they all want (and should) to be relevant, but are caught between not knowing where they should go or what they should keep.
All of this feeds into the “higher education arms race” that we’ve been playing in the US and Canada and that other countries have recently joined. All professional and higher-level jobs require a postsecondary degree, and we are even being told that most other jobs require the same. This isn’t true, however. We’ve only made this up because it fuels higher education and the curricula of postsecondary education. I’ve mentioned this before that, upon analysis, the job market isn’t as needy of bachelor’s degrees as many pundits would like us to believe. It’s just that the BA has become the filter for employment. I’m as guilty as anyone. I only hire employees with at least a BA, because I’m hopeful that it is an indicator of higher learning and critical thinking. In some cases, I am looking for people with specific skills (like data analysis, qualitative or quantitative research, etc.), but in most cases, I’m looking for “smart” people, and I use the BA as a filter (it hasn’t always proven accurate).
But if we are shoving 14-plus million people through postsecondary education in the US alone, are we doing so with enough purpose other than getting them through a certain filter? It would seem reasonable that we could save the country and taxpayers a whole lot of money if people were educated only to the needs of the job, and retrained as necessary. But that isn’t what we do. Our policy at this point in time is to take 13 years of schooling (K-12), plus, of course, the Pre-K that is basically required, then take at least four more years of higher learning. Anyone less isn’t good enough in our standards, even though most jobs don’t require the skill sets gained in a BA program (trust me; check out the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the information I used in our publication Is More Better? The Impact of Postsecondary Education on the Economic and Social Well-Being of American Society). Most new work is in the service sector which actually requires no postsecondary education.
But I’m pragmatic enough to understand that this isn’t going to happen, which is why I love the term “education arms race.” It’s accurate. It’s Reagan and Gorbachev, but in an academic world. Europe and the Euro are coming on, so we better send more people to college, just so more of these graduates, like the article I mentioned, can be unemployed because we haven’t thought much of what they should be studying, only that they should be “going.”
As the Baby Boomers begin to retire in droves, we will require more health care providers than ever before. Similarly, we will need more teachers because, well, the Baby Boomers are retiring, and they are teachers. I’m not worried about university professors, because they never retire.
I’m a proponent of college access programs and of getting students into college. But I want students to go for the right reasons, because they know what they want to do and they know what they need to do to get there. I don’t like it when I hear scare tactics about how bad it is to live in our society without a postsecondary education. That’s just not true. The truth is that there are many advantages to having higher levels of degrees—without doubt. But people who choose challenging and interesting careers, regardless of the necessary level of education, do well in society, too.
As we continue to talk college costs, sticker prices, and federal, state, and provincial budgets, we need to talk more about the role of higher education in our society and how we can best utilize that public investment.
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