Upskilling: the New Revolving Door in Higher Education

Aimee DiBrienza, Assistant Director of Adult and Workforce Education at Southern Utah University

Aimee DiBrienza, Assistant Director of Adult and Workforce Education at Southern Utah University

What New-Collar Workers Need

Harvard Business Review described New Collar Workers in the spring of 2023 as a ‘huge, capable, and diverse talent pool’ that isn't receiving the attention of companies or hiring managers because they lack a college degree. In their analysis of 'middle-skill' jobs, HBR and Accenture discovered that college degree holders don't perform those jobs any better than those without degrees but with the required skills. And we know that every job has transformed over recent years. Technology use is increasing, and jobs have become highly specialized. In fact, it would be difficult to identify a truly ‘blue collar’ job anymore, according to historical definitions. Employsure (2024) describes white-collar jobs as those requiring 'strategic thinking,’ ‘planning and executing of projects,’ and ‘setting goals and objectives,’ among other attributes, but many jobs that have been considered blue-collar in the past also fit those descriptions and involve more use of highly complex technologies and intelligence work than ever before. Since highly skilled work can be effectively done by those without college degrees, the challenges facing the New Collar Worker are finding specific skill-based training they need to accomplish their constantly evolving work and demonstrating skill competence to their employers or prospective employers.

‘A movement toward workforce skills and the goal of employment for college graduates has state governments and higher education authorities looking at degree requirements and considering how degree programs can also evolve.’

Upskilling & Microcredentials

Enter the microcredential. While technical colleges have been providing certificate programs for more than a century, mainstream universities have largely focused on degree programs until recently. The nationwide push for short courses, pathways, and certificate programs accelerated by the global pandemic has sparked unprecedented growth in traditional colleges, where these types of offerings are taking root. A movement toward workforce skills and the goal of employment for college graduates has state governments and higher education authorities looking at degree requirements and considering how degree programs can also evolve. The bottom line is that skill-based programs resulting in industry, institutional and academic certificates and digital badges of a broad variety are now cropping up in colleges and universities all over. As faith in higher education and the perceived value of a four-year degree decrease, the demand for skill-based programming just continues to rise. The same learners who are no longer interested in pursuing a bachelor’s degree look to their local colleges for certificate programs that will help them upskill and climb a career ladder or reskill to change careers entirely.

Rethinking College

So, how do we define a college student today? Counting only those who have committed to a bachelor's or master's degree seems short-sighted. The National Center for Education Statistics 2023 report states that over half of college students in the U.S. take at least one fully online course, so there is no longer a clear line between distance students and face-to-face students. NASPA claims that at least 40 percent of college students are non-traditional, though other sources say this number could be as high as 73 percent, and many campuses are phasing out the "non-traditional" label altogether. The point is that college students today are complicated, and now more than ever, they are likely to take courses in short bursts as they need them to achieve workplace demands. Full-time college isn't going anywhere, but part-time and short-term study is becoming increasingly normal, as is the revolving door into and out of college as life and work situations change. Instead of students thinking of college as something they do once, it is becoming a resource that is available over and over again. And if predictions about the potential 100-year work life prove true, each of us will find ourselves reskilling and upskilling many times across our lifetime as we experience an estimated 12 career changes across our working lives. It's time to reframe our mental picture of what college looks like and embrace the idea of college as a revolving door for upskilling and reskilling a complex population of workforce contributors.

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