In this book review, Wallace Boston, President Emeritus, American Public University System, provides an in-depth summary of and his expert opinion about “Work Disrupted: Opportunity, Resilience, and Growth in the Accelerated Future of Work,” by Jeff Schwartz with Susan Riss, published by Wiley. Schwartz is founding partner of Deloitte Consulting’s U.S. Future of Work practice.

With interest in short-term credential programs rising among adult learners in need of higher paying job opportunities, U.S. federal and state policy must ensure the quality, accessibility, and positive labor outcomes of these programs. In this report, JFF highlights four states that have implemented credential policies designed to promote equity, economic mobility, and higher education alignment with in-demand career opportunities.

In California, only one quarter of community college students who enroll in career education programs go on to earn a credential within six years. Further, only “about five percent of all career education students earn multiple credentials in the same discipline, though this includes students who earn an associate degree.” In this report, the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) conducts a longitudinal analysis examining students’ career education trajectories over the past decade and discusses how California community colleges can better support credential completion and connect learners to career pathways through employer engagement.

In this 12-page document, the Heldrich Center reports on a three-tiered virtual model of strategies for working with job seekers. The model stresses better use of technology and favors expansion efforts – beyond basic and familiar job searching practices, such as resume writing and interviewing workshops – that embrace a variety of virtual-based “human-centered, holistic approaches to working with job seekers.”

Over the past four decades, income inequality grew significantly between workers with bachelor’s degrees and those with high school diplomas (often called “unskilled”). Rather than being unskilled, we argue that these workers are STARs because they are skilled through alternative routes—namely their work experience.

This toolkit provides state and local CTE leaders with actionable resources, guidance and tools to ensure CTE learner voices are elevated and heard for the improvement of CTE policies and practices. 

More low-wage employees want opportunities to grow. Big companies are making more promises to help them.

Intermediaries play a crucial, yet often misunderstood, role in the successful implementation of apprenticeship programs in the United States. Intermediaries serve various functions—as connectors, engagers, and administrators—and use their specialized expertise of the US apprenticeship system to aid employers in navigating its intricacies.

Michelle Weise is the author of Long Life Learning: Preparing for Jobs That Don’t Even Exist Yet. Michelle is also a Senior Advisor at the philanthropic investment group, Imaginable Futures. On this episode, she joins Mike Palmer to discuss her new book and how we can reimagine our learning ecosystem in response to longer lifespans, automation, and rapid transformation of the 21st Century.

Read more about how CDC’s Project Firstline is partnering with the American Hospital Association and the League for Innovation in the Community College to launch a new initiative to integrate infection control content into community college classrooms.

A new report measures the “return on investment” offered by various higher education programs.

This month’s episode of The Key, Inside Higher Ed’s news and analysis podcast, examines a new possible new way for adults to enter or advance in the workforce. Merit America is a nonprofit organization that connects adults to short-term certification programs and to professional coaches to help move them quickly into high-demand jobs like IT support and data analytics.

New program-level data released from the US Department of Education now allows us to dig below the surface at many institutions across the country to explore what kind of ROI the typical student received from the specific college program from which they graduated. Comparing the earnings premium that students obtain relative to the price they paid to earn their credential allows us to calculate the price-to-earnings premium that individual majors within an institution produce for their graduates.

In this time of social upheaval, racial reckoning, and public health crisis, our nation has been forced to confront deep vulnerabilities in our economic system. These reports follow a national report, Race and the Work of the Future, which demonstrated that the workforce inequities are national, the solutions to these problems are local. These latest reports reflect the power of local leadership, design, and influence.