Education, Meet Disruption
Factoring The Benefits of Higher Education
By Deborah Snyder, PhD and John Duhring, Cogswell Polytechnical College, San Jose, California
Participating in the global ecosystems that have emerged in the past 10 years is a challenge but cannot be the goal. Preparing students to be a part of the ecosystems of tomorrow has to become the focus of every educational institution. Unfortunately, the current structures cannot hold up much longer.
Specifically, the costs of higher education as practiced today through mainstream colleges and universities outweigh their benefits. In the past few years, every college president has probably had a painful conversation with a parent. The conversation goes something like this:
“My child just graduated from your fine institution with a degree in (fill in the blank). As parents, it cost us a quarter of a million dollars. Now our child has moved back in with us and has no job. What are you going to do about it?”
This child was lucky. Most students in this position are saddled with sizeable financial debt from student loans. From purely a financial standpoint, many students would be better off finding a job after high school. These students can advance in their careers earlier and make money while those going to college are paying for over four years and may not be able to make up the difference considering they must pay back loans. A recent analysis published by Bloomberg noted:
“On average, college pays off, though not always. The wage premium comes with risk. For every degree short of a graduate degree, there’s a decent chance that a good high school graduate will out-earn the college graduate.”
This mismatch cannot last. If a student wishes to work in existing ecosystems, there is little need for them to take four years before they start their professional careers. In short, college should only be considered by those who want to participate in the ecosystems that are being developed around them. “Finding a job” is not a good reason to go to college!
Unfortunately, it gets worse when graduates pursue academic careers. Not only are they saddled with more debt, but their job prospects are less than if they were trained to become part of emerging ecosystems. When universities helped agrarian populations adapt to industrial life, the need for talent in many sectors, such as automobile and telecommunications, provided a new standard of living. The same can be true when the move to offices brought with it demand for talent in mass media and financial services (think credit cards). The careers that are looking for talent today can’t find enough talent! They are paying huge bonuses to find what they need and colleges are turning out graduates to don’t fit.
A university is accredited by addressing these questions.
* Do Students Know What They Need To Know?
* Can They Do What They Need To Do?
* Does What They Learn Fit The Student?
* Does What They Learn Fit With The World Outside?
In the recent past, colleges and universities have relied on recruiting their best students to become academics. This makes sense when the demand for professors and new campuses outstrips supply. Those days are long gone, with campuses closing in both public and private settings. Moody’s Investor Services published a forecast that many colleges will soon close as they cannot attract students to cover their cost of operations. As more students choose to participate in their own local ecosystems, even to pursue their entrepreneurial aspirations, their need for traditional college programs and their interest in pursuing academic careers declines.
Billionaire Peter Thiel’s fellowship to pay promising entrepreneurs to drop out of college has been one new approach to smoothing the transition to new economies. In five years of existence, his foundation has awarded $100,000 to 83 Fellows. These have gone on to found companies that now generate over $29 million in yearly revenue after receiving over $72 million in funding. With so many options to learn without going to college, this might seem impressive until we consider that over 6 million students enter college each year in the US alone.
What Do Emerging Ecosystems Need?
One new technology developed in the 1970s is the practice of venture capital. It differs from traditional banking in a fundamental way: it values potential as an asset. Currently, 43% of the publicly traded companies founded since 1979 were funded through venture capital. These account for 57% of the total market value of all such companies. They also account for over 80% of all research and development spending. They employ over 4 million people and they account for over 25% of all research and development spent, including government, academic and private sources.
This means that colleges and universities, often the funnel for government research investments, may soon no longer manage the lion’s share of funding or jobs in research. So, they should pay close attention to the companies that receive venture capital. It turns out, startups that have received venture funding love to work directly with undergraduate students. Unlike governments, whose funding protocols involve grant-writing and stringent compliance guidelines, venture-capitalized companies tend to be nimble and value student perspective, since these represent their future customers.
To understand where venture capital flows is to gain a glimpse into the world of tomorrow. Mature venture-backed companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook gain the headlines, but alongside them are thousands of amazing ventures who are looking for feedback, for their new customers and for talent. Universities already provide user testing grounds, developer talent and feedback on prototypes as well and finished products. These companies pride themselves on learning fast as they grow.
Like colleges and universities, large enterprises are learning to embrace the changes brought by digital culture, the current product of mixing creativity and technology. The role of Chief Information Office (CIO) is currently shifting to embrace startups, to take a fresh approach by removing siloes of operations.
In a recent TechCrunch article, Michael Krigsman, founder of a weekly web-based talk show on which he interviews leading tech industry executives, says, “Successful executives are able to embrace change. This is a very key point and it’s really the most difficult thing… With the exception of startups, every company has an established business model and way they do business.”
And, in its 2016 Technology Vision Report, the consulting firm Accenture calls for a “People First” approach. The report opens with this statement about the primacy of people in the digital age:
“Winners in the digital age know success comes from more than just completing a checklist of technology. It hinges on people. Keeping up with changing technology is vital. But today, it’s just as important to evolve the organization’s corporate culture. In a disruptive world, workforces must be built to adapt, to embrace new business strategies and continuously learn new skillsets.”
Students And Startups
For students, the hidden value of startups is that they will talk. If a student walks into any mature company and asks someone there to explain what they do, or what they are looking for in order to grow, they quite possibly will be greeted with blank stares. Walking into a startup is a different matter. Everyone in the enterprise is constantly practicing their story. They want to express how they fit into what the organization is trying to achieve. In many cases, they will provide updates and even ask questions for feedback on new initiatives.
Institutions of higher education are adapting to embrace their local startup ecosystems. Colleges are building co-working spaces so startups are near their students. They invite startup CEOs to speak to their classes, not only about their business but also to give feedback on student projects. Increasingly, the most popular courses on college campuses are projects done with startups, which often means weekly Skype calls to set priorities and review accomplishments. And, through these and other activities, startups identify the talents they want to hire as they grow.
In the process, students benefit from the exposure provided by their college or university. The screening mechanism of faculty and staff finding good startup partners helps stimulate student imaginations. They get to rub shoulders with CEOs, to learn the language of tech and venture. Probably most important, they use their exposure to translate what they learn in the classroom to what is valuable in the real world.
For example, two different students recently found their way into the venture capitalized world via what is known as User Experience Design, or UX. This field simply didn’t exist twenty years ago, yet it is at the root of what makes a venture successful. There are currently no standard academic paths to UX. The Stanford d School might be closest to providing a proving ground, but for most students, they discover opportunities through the connections they make with startups.
One of the students has a Masters degree from a major research university. Her field is Anthropology. She has done field work in Africa, and considered an academic career. She took a staff position at her university to oversee student affairs, to manage the budget, facilities and personel supporting student clubs. Like so many others who wish to transfer into technology careers, she took a UX course, attended meetups and participated in a hackathon.
While she learned something through the course and enjoyed meeting people at various industry gatherings, it was the hackathon that made her see the world in a new way. Hackathons provide an intense learning experience in a compressed amount of time. They represent a new educational technology (click to download pdf). In the process of pitching an idea, forming a team and developing a prototype within 48 hours, she discovered it was all about anthropology after all! Suddenly her academic training had meaning, and she was on her way.
The other student graduated as a digital arts and animation major. She loved to sketch, to quickly render out characters and scenes. She would go to renaissance faires and generate character studies. She would do the same at the park on a weekend. When she was hired as an intern by a startup, she thought they wanted her to generate screens and graphical interfaces for their technology. By the time she had been hired full-time, she realized what the team really valued were her storytelling skills and her story-boards that document how people discover and use the company’s product in a wide variety of situations. Her simple illustrations help engineers build the right product in record time.
Without experience with startups, whether through hackathons or internships, these students may well have found themselves on the outside of the forces that are changing how we live. They had to employ higher education on their own, with no school, in order to make the connection. Now they do what they love, what they are good at, and what others find valuable.
“A leader . . . is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.” —Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela
And so it goes in an increasingly chaotic world. Higher education might start in college, but with technology is generating new professions at an astounding rate. Professionals must continually draw on their ability to observe the world around them deeply, to make sense of what they see, to adapt to the world as it is, to bring out their best and apply it to the situation at hand. Even with no school as a support, the higher education process becomes an ever more valuable asset in an ever changing world.
Still, the calculation of return on investment cannot be left aside. Institutions of higher education have to embrace the jobs that are being invented as well as the academic jobs that foster only more academic programs. Faculty and startups, by working together, can meld current curricula to generate the kinds of talent that make a difference in the real world. Startups love to hire students who have just graduated, since they can pay less and get the creativity that comes with someone fresh out of school. Students benefit by seeing their salaries meet industry norms in very short order as they mature into the world of tech and venture.
Business Insider recently identified tech industry professions that are in need of talent. These job functions represent over four million jobs that need to be filled at salaries that any college graduate would die for. Typically, there are little or no college degrees or academic programs that feed talent to them.
Social media, digital journalism and content origination has been turned upside down by technologies from desktop publishing to Instagram. The number of open jobs in this area has more than doubled in a year, to over 115,000 job openings currently posted. The average salary of $62,680 means even startups hiring students at low wage will enable them to pay back their student loans and look forward to more opportunities as they develop their craft.
The area called Business Development didn’t exist 30 years ago. It can mean anything that leads to the growth and evolution of a venture. It’s a skill you can’t learn from a book. Those who have it enjoy an average salary of $80,887. There are currently nearly half a million positions open, an increase of 50% in a year.
Data scientists are performing data analysis on big data. In such a new field, every venture backed company is looking to improve their business through the data that it generates. The field values asking the right questions and structuring perspectives from rivers of information provided by billions of discrete events. With nearly 300,000 jobs open in the area and an average salary of $76,384, the field cannot be learned from a book. Students must pursue meetups and internships to get started.
Databases have broken into applied specialties around platforms like SAP, Oracle and SQL. The combined disciplines for these alone are seeking over 1.5 million new hires. They pay very well, with average salaries in the $90,000 range. The best way to get in is to build things while you are in college.
Mathematics is also in great demand. Everything that needs to be modeled and manipulated can benefit from tools build with effective algorithms. Mathematical minds lend themselves to optimizing systems of all kinds. There are over quarter of a million jobs to be filled in this area, paying average salaries of over $70,000.
Sales no longer means pushing products and doing deals. Jobs can be in Developer Relations and Partner Development. These indirect selling methods are growing fast. There are over 800,000 open jobs featuring average salaries of $70,470.
Venture backed companies are now looking for Decision-making, Collaboration, Mentoring and Process Improvement. These terms represent what companies are looking for, even if they don’t define a specific job. People with these skills can move from one side of an organization to another. Combined, they represent over 4.5 million current job openings with average salaries over $80,000.
These are the jobs available to students today. Colleges and universities are adapting by creating pathways into these careers so students can pay off their loans without moving in with their parents. For these, the college experience helps them pursue their passions, to develop the skills they need, to find their identity as a professional and to make an impact on the world. While technical training can take a few months or a couple of years, a full degree program enables students to explore their fit in the world. A college exposes them to a multitude of startups and ventures. They can see what jobs need to be done and the value they provide. They can try things and fail within a safe environment, while under the guidance of faculty, mentors and peers. This is the new reason to go to college and it doesn’t require going to a prestigious institution. It can be done at a reasonable price and close to home.
From Cogswell Polytechnical College in San Jose, California, Dr. Deborah Snyder and John Duhring, authors of a new higher education series in advance of their upcoming book, tentatively titled “Old School, New School, No School,” provide a new perspective on what higher education means and how it can be more effectively experienced across the globe. Prior segments in order listed below:
How Technology Is “Democratising” The Future Of Learning
Adapting To Higher Education: The Identity Struggle
From American Scholar To Global Player
Old School, New School: Anatomy Of A Lecture
Step Into The Future Of Higher Education
Of Sketches, Compositions And Flow: Evaluating Higher Education
A Leap In Consciousness – Discovery In A Digital World
What Will I Do After High School?
Factoring The Benefits of Higher Education By Deborah Snyder, PhD and John Duhring, Cogswell Polytechnical College, San Jose, California Participating in the global ecosystems that have emerged in the past 10 years is a challenge but cannot be the goal. Preparing students to be a part of the ecosystems of tomorrow has to become the focus of every educational institution. Unfortunately, the current structures cannot hold up much longer. Specifically, the costs of higher education as practiced today through mainstream colleges and universities outweigh their benefits. In the past few years, every college president has probably had a painful conversation...
Factoring The Benefits of Higher Education
By Deborah Snyder, PhD and John Duhring, Cogswell Polytechnical College, San Jose, California
Participating in the global ecosystems that have emerged in the past 10 years is a challenge but cannot be the goal. Preparing students to be a part of the ecosystems of tomorrow has to become the focus of every educational institution. Unfortunately, the current structures cannot hold up much longer.
Specifically, the costs of higher education as practiced today through mainstream colleges and universities outweigh their benefits. In the past few years, every college president has probably had a painful conversation with a parent. The conversation goes something like this:
“My child just graduated from your fine institution with a degree in (fill in the blank). As parents, it cost us a quarter of a million dollars. Now our child has moved back in with us and has no job. What are you going to do about it?”
This child was lucky. Most students in this position are saddled with sizeable financial debt from student loans. From purely a financial standpoint, many students would be better off finding a job after high school. These students can advance in their careers earlier and make money while those going to college are paying for over four years and may not be able to make up the difference considering they must pay back loans. A recent analysis published by Bloomberg noted:
“On average, college pays off, though not always. The wage premium comes with risk. For every degree short of a graduate degree, there’s a decent chance that a good high school graduate will out-earn the college graduate.”
This mismatch cannot last. If a student wishes to work in existing ecosystems, there is little need for them to take four years before they start their professional careers. In short, college should only be considered by those who want to participate in the ecosystems that are being developed around them. “Finding a job” is not a good reason to go to college!
Unfortunately, it gets worse when graduates pursue academic careers. Not only are they saddled with more debt, but their job prospects are less than if they were trained to become part of emerging ecosystems. When universities helped agrarian populations adapt to industrial life, the need for talent in many sectors, such as automobile and telecommunications, provided a new standard of living. The same can be true when the move to offices brought with it demand for talent in mass media and financial services (think credit cards). The careers that are looking for talent today can’t find enough talent! They are paying huge bonuses to find what they need and colleges are turning out graduates to don’t fit.
A university is accredited by addressing these questions.
* Do Students Know What They Need To Know?
* Can They Do What They Need To Do?
* Does What They Learn Fit The Student?
* Does What They Learn Fit With The World Outside?
In the recent past, colleges and universities have relied on recruiting their best students to become academics. This makes sense when the demand for professors and new campuses outstrips supply. Those days are long gone, with campuses closing in both public and private settings. Moody’s Investor Services published a forecast that many colleges will soon close as they cannot attract students to cover their cost of operations. As more students choose to participate in their own local ecosystems, even to pursue their entrepreneurial aspirations, their need for traditional college programs and their interest in pursuing academic careers declines.
Billionaire Peter Thiel’s fellowship to pay promising entrepreneurs to drop out of college has been one new approach to smoothing the transition to new economies. In five years of existence, his foundation has awarded $100,000 to 83 Fellows. These have gone on to found companies that now generate over $29 million in yearly revenue after receiving over $72 million in funding. With so many options to learn without going to college, this might seem impressive until we consider that over 6 million students enter college each year in the US alone.
What Do Emerging Ecosystems Need?
One new technology developed in the 1970s is the practice of venture capital. It differs from traditional banking in a fundamental way: it values potential as an asset. Currently, 43% of the publicly traded companies founded since 1979 were funded through venture capital. These account for 57% of the total market value of all such companies. They also account for over 80% of all research and development spending. They employ over 4 million people and they account for over 25% of all research and development spent, including government, academic and private sources.
This means that colleges and universities, often the funnel for government research investments, may soon no longer manage the lion’s share of funding or jobs in research. So, they should pay close attention to the companies that receive venture capital. It turns out, startups that have received venture funding love to work directly with undergraduate students. Unlike governments, whose funding protocols involve grant-writing and stringent compliance guidelines, venture-capitalized companies tend to be nimble and value student perspective, since these represent their future customers.
To understand where venture capital flows is to gain a glimpse into the world of tomorrow. Mature venture-backed companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook gain the headlines, but alongside them are thousands of amazing ventures who are looking for feedback, for their new customers and for talent. Universities already provide user testing grounds, developer talent and feedback on prototypes as well and finished products. These companies pride themselves on learning fast as they grow.
Like colleges and universities, large enterprises are learning to embrace the changes brought by digital culture, the current product of mixing creativity and technology. The role of Chief Information Office (CIO) is currently shifting to embrace startups, to take a fresh approach by removing siloes of operations.
In a recent TechCrunch article, Michael Krigsman, founder of a weekly web-based talk show on which he interviews leading tech industry executives, says, “Successful executives are able to embrace change. This is a very key point and it’s really the most difficult thing… With the exception of startups, every company has an established business model and way they do business.”
And, in its 2016 Technology Vision Report, the consulting firm Accenture calls for a “People First” approach. The report opens with this statement about the primacy of people in the digital age:
“Winners in the digital age know success comes from more than just completing a checklist of technology. It hinges on people. Keeping up with changing technology is vital. But today, it’s just as important to evolve the organization’s corporate culture. In a disruptive world, workforces must be built to adapt, to embrace new business strategies and continuously learn new skillsets.”
Students And Startups
For students, the hidden value of startups is that they will talk. If a student walks into any mature company and asks someone there to explain what they do, or what they are looking for in order to grow, they quite possibly will be greeted with blank stares. Walking into a startup is a different matter. Everyone in the enterprise is constantly practicing their story. They want to express how they fit into what the organization is trying to achieve. In many cases, they will provide updates and even ask questions for feedback on new initiatives.
Institutions of higher education are adapting to embrace their local startup ecosystems. Colleges are building co-working spaces so startups are near their students. They invite startup CEOs to speak to their classes, not only about their business but also to give feedback on student projects. Increasingly, the most popular courses on college campuses are projects done with startups, which often means weekly Skype calls to set priorities and review accomplishments. And, through these and other activities, startups identify the talents they want to hire as they grow.
In the process, students benefit from the exposure provided by their college or university. The screening mechanism of faculty and staff finding good startup partners helps stimulate student imaginations. They get to rub shoulders with CEOs, to learn the language of tech and venture. Probably most important, they use their exposure to translate what they learn in the classroom to what is valuable in the real world.
For example, two different students recently found their way into the venture capitalized world via what is known as User Experience Design, or UX. This field simply didn’t exist twenty years ago, yet it is at the root of what makes a venture successful. There are currently no standard academic paths to UX. The Stanford d School might be closest to providing a proving ground, but for most students, they discover opportunities through the connections they make with startups.
One of the students has a Masters degree from a major research university. Her field is Anthropology. She has done field work in Africa, and considered an academic career. She took a staff position at her university to oversee student affairs, to manage the budget, facilities and personel supporting student clubs. Like so many others who wish to transfer into technology careers, she took a UX course, attended meetups and participated in a hackathon.
While she learned something through the course and enjoyed meeting people at various industry gatherings, it was the hackathon that made her see the world in a new way. Hackathons provide an intense learning experience in a compressed amount of time. They represent a new educational technology (click to download pdf). In the process of pitching an idea, forming a team and developing a prototype within 48 hours, she discovered it was all about anthropology after all! Suddenly her academic training had meaning, and she was on her way.
The other student graduated as a digital arts and animation major. She loved to sketch, to quickly render out characters and scenes. She would go to renaissance faires and generate character studies. She would do the same at the park on a weekend. When she was hired as an intern by a startup, she thought they wanted her to generate screens and graphical interfaces for their technology. By the time she had been hired full-time, she realized what the team really valued were her storytelling skills and her story-boards that document how people discover and use the company’s product in a wide variety of situations. Her simple illustrations help engineers build the right product in record time.
Without experience with startups, whether through hackathons or internships, these students may well have found themselves on the outside of the forces that are changing how we live. They had to employ higher education on their own, with no school, in order to make the connection. Now they do what they love, what they are good at, and what others find valuable.
“A leader . . . is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.” —Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela
And so it goes in an increasingly chaotic world. Higher education might start in college, but with technology is generating new professions at an astounding rate. Professionals must continually draw on their ability to observe the world around them deeply, to make sense of what they see, to adapt to the world as it is, to bring out their best and apply it to the situation at hand. Even with no school as a support, the higher education process becomes an ever more valuable asset in an ever changing world.
Still, the calculation of return on investment cannot be left aside. Institutions of higher education have to embrace the jobs that are being invented as well as the academic jobs that foster only more academic programs. Faculty and startups, by working together, can meld current curricula to generate the kinds of talent that make a difference in the real world. Startups love to hire students who have just graduated, since they can pay less and get the creativity that comes with someone fresh out of school. Students benefit by seeing their salaries meet industry norms in very short order as they mature into the world of tech and venture.
Business Insider recently identified tech industry professions that are in need of talent. These job functions represent over four million jobs that need to be filled at salaries that any college graduate would die for. Typically, there are little or no college degrees or academic programs that feed talent to them.
Social media, digital journalism and content origination has been turned upside down by technologies from desktop publishing to Instagram. The number of open jobs in this area has more than doubled in a year, to over 115,000 job openings currently posted. The average salary of $62,680 means even startups hiring students at low wage will enable them to pay back their student loans and look forward to more opportunities as they develop their craft.
The area called Business Development didn’t exist 30 years ago. It can mean anything that leads to the growth and evolution of a venture. It’s a skill you can’t learn from a book. Those who have it enjoy an average salary of $80,887. There are currently nearly half a million positions open, an increase of 50% in a year.
Data scientists are performing data analysis on big data. In such a new field, every venture backed company is looking to improve their business through the data that it generates. The field values asking the right questions and structuring perspectives from rivers of information provided by billions of discrete events. With nearly 300,000 jobs open in the area and an average salary of $76,384, the field cannot be learned from a book. Students must pursue meetups and internships to get started.
Databases have broken into applied specialties around platforms like SAP, Oracle and SQL. The combined disciplines for these alone are seeking over 1.5 million new hires. They pay very well, with average salaries in the $90,000 range. The best way to get in is to build things while you are in college.
Mathematics is also in great demand. Everything that needs to be modeled and manipulated can benefit from tools build with effective algorithms. Mathematical minds lend themselves to optimizing systems of all kinds. There are over quarter of a million jobs to be filled in this area, paying average salaries of over $70,000.
Sales no longer means pushing products and doing deals. Jobs can be in Developer Relations and Partner Development. These indirect selling methods are growing fast. There are over 800,000 open jobs featuring average salaries of $70,470.
Venture backed companies are now looking for Decision-making, Collaboration, Mentoring and Process Improvement. These terms represent what companies are looking for, even if they don’t define a specific job. People with these skills can move from one side of an organization to another. Combined, they represent over 4.5 million current job openings with average salaries over $80,000.
These are the jobs available to students today. Colleges and universities are adapting by creating pathways into these careers so students can pay off their loans without moving in with their parents. For these, the college experience helps them pursue their passions, to develop the skills they need, to find their identity as a professional and to make an impact on the world. While technical training can take a few months or a couple of years, a full degree program enables students to explore their fit in the world. A college exposes them to a multitude of startups and ventures. They can see what jobs need to be done and the value they provide. They can try things and fail within a safe environment, while under the guidance of faculty, mentors and peers. This is the new reason to go to college and it doesn’t require going to a prestigious institution. It can be done at a reasonable price and close to home.
From Cogswell Polytechnical College in San Jose, California, Dr. Deborah Snyder and John Duhring, authors of a new higher education series in advance of their upcoming book, tentatively titled “Old School, New School, No School,” provide a new perspective on what higher education means and how it can be more effectively experienced across the globe. Prior segments in order listed below:
How Technology Is “Democratising” The Future Of Learning
Adapting To Higher Education: The Identity Struggle
From American Scholar To Global Player
Old School, New School: Anatomy Of A Lecture
Step Into The Future Of Higher Education
Of Sketches, Compositions And Flow: Evaluating Higher Education
A Leap In Consciousness – Discovery In A Digital World
What Will I Do After High School?
