Global Career Compass
Leveraging Education Abroad for Student Career Development & Employability
Nepal Earthquake: How Can I Help?
I know the work of Accountability Lab and urge you to share these invaluable insights.
This blog post was originally published by The Center for High Impact Philanthropy.
On Saturday, April 25, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Nepal, with additional tremors continuing throughout the last three days. Nearly 5,000 are already confirmed dead, with many thousands more injured and/or without adequate food, water, or shelter. At times like this, the first question for many is, “How can I help?” For those who want to help, here’s what you need to know now.
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The World Needs More International Higher Education – University World News
Appearing in the April 24, 2015 Global Edition of University World News, this essay offers a solid framework and rationale for all campuses around the world. Perhaps a bit overly optimistic when the author states “no country…is immune from the process of globalization…” I can think of many.
Yet, I do like the reference to the “virtuous cycle” of internationalization and globalization. I have not read the book, Democratizing Higher Education, where research “shows that international higher education has been an important vehicle…to serve as a positive force for democratizing societies..” But would there not need to be a foundation of liberal institutions and some pre-existing democratic institutions already in place for this linkage to occur?
The world needs more international higher education – University World News.
Closing the Expectation Gap Between Students & Employers
On the NAFSA: Association of International Educators blog page, I wrote: http://blog.nafsa.org/2015/04/24/closing-the-expectation-gap-between-students-employers/
Overview of results from a January 2015 survey by the Association of American Colleges & Universities pointing to need for all campuses to creatively innovate and create a campus culture fully integrating career development with curricular offerings and with co-curricular opportunities – like study abroad and international internships. Read More
A Global Kumbaya Moment: “We’ve Got the Whole World at University…Is It Worth It?
Leave it to those UK editors at The Economist! The special report in the March 28 issue: http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21646985-american-model-higher-education-spreading-it-good-producing-excellence is an excellent overview , on a global scale, of the impact of massification of the higher education industry.
While crediting the U.S. and our research university system for launching the globalization of higher ed, they ask the $64,000 question: is it – or has it been – worth the investment of resources? Yes, the “return” on this investment is relatively greater in poorer nations, but, as we know, there is much doubt of late in Europe & North America. I love that they dug up this quote, from an Arthur Miller play, produced in 1946: “Everybody’s gettin so goddam educated in this country they’ll be nobody around to take away the garbage…You stand on the street today and spit, you’re gonna hit a college man [remember , it’s 1946].”
As to the real ROI, the report graphs out that the highest return, per average increase in earnings for every additional year of college is greatest in Sub-Saharan Africa – better than 20% (whereas it is more than 10% in high income nations).
Among the notable quotes in this essay is this one, by Jefferson, who, in proposing to reform the curriculum at William & Mary College, said: it [the curriculum] should nurture “those talents which nature has sown as liberally among the poor as the rich, but which perish without use, if not sought for and cultivated.” This is a wonderful lead to the section which, needless to say, suggests that our higher education system, to date, has failed at boosting the chances of our disadvantaged citizens to reap the benefits in an equal way with others in our society…
Do you not agree with the judgment that, “America’s universities are failing to deliver equity. People are prepared to pay through the nose to buy advantage for their children, so top institutions charge ever higher prices and acquire ever more resources, while those [colleges and universities] at the bottom get less.”
As Kurt Vonnegut used to say, “And so it goes…”
Graduating “Employable” Students
The mismatch between the high expectations youths have when going to college and the reality that their educational experience does not adequately prepare them for available jobs in their local or regional economies is a disappointment to all actors: the student, the university and to potential employers.
I’ve just completed a new book chapter with Dr. Cheryl Matherly from the University of Tulsa, titled “Higher Education and the Employability Agenda.” It will come out in a textbook sometime this year (Palgrave) on Higher Education Policy and Governance. We spent many months conducting quite a bit of background research on this topic and looked at material from both North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. If you’re interested at all in reading about youth unemployment – sometimes a euphemism for the un or under-employment of university grads – I’d urge you to see my twitter posts!
The first fact which is a bit hard to get your head around is that there are, according to the International Labor Organization, an estimated 75 million “youths” who are unemployed –whether they are university graduates or not, this is a huge part of the global population which is not contributing to the…
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Lifetime Employment “vs.” Lifetime Employability
The devils’ bargain between employers and employees…students need to understand and clearly see the reality of the workforce they’re getting ready to enter.
I’ve been a longtime user of LinkedIn and consulted on its effective use as a tool in the job search process. The site is universally – across national borders – seen as an indispensable tool for any professional (whether employed or job seeking). And so this article reporting an interview with the site’s founder, Reid Hoffman, was intriguing:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB20001424052702304168904580031461652986300.
Hoffman has a way with metaphors and I liked his statement that [private sector] employers, to remain in tune with the rapidity of change in the marketplace, will need to hire increasingly more “adaptive” employees. However, he points out that employees also are changing how they view their loyalty and commitment to their current employer. Thus, they are always on the lookout for their next job never feeling secure in their current assignment. And so the new contract between the two parties is more of an open “alliance.” One…
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The Art of Being Human & “Value” of a College Education
This essay is a time-out for me. I’ve been speaking about the need for students to become more savvy about how to link their international education experiences to their aspirations for employment for a long time. Titles in this blog reflect that quite clearly. And I know that many of my colleagues are very concerned about the need for their campuses to do a better job about preparing their students to enter the workforce. In the times we’re in, this is, needless to say, obvious. And then I read this essay by Prof. Lisa Dolling who teaches Philosophy at Stevens Institute of Technology, http://chronicle.com/article/To-Help-Students-Succeed/228281/?cid=wb&utm_source=wb&utm_medium=e
She says: “…in the end it is not only a matter of what you do, it’s how and why you do it; and the knowledge that that this requires above all is knowledge of oneself.” She writes out of her concern that the debate surrounding the purpose/meaning/value of a degree has created false dichotomies…”Either you believe the purpose of going to college is to be able to secure a job, or you think there is something more intrinsically valuable to be gained from the years spent earning a degree.”
Prof. Dolling writes with great eloquence and clarity. And I do agree with her that we’ve placed ourselves between a rock and a very hard place on this question about ROI & value of getting a degree. She longs for a more perfect economic world when families saw sending their child to college was, in and of itself, of great value to their personal maturation and intellectual growth. When a kid – like me back in my day – did not spend every week and month worrying whether or not this or that course would build my career portfolio and lead me on to that first job. There was a sense that it was, without question, the right stepping stone; that the degree (or a graduate degree that would follow) would surely GET me a job.
And now we’re back in this moment – in 2015. And we know that other critical factors impede viewing entering and leaving college in such simple terms. Yet, I want to wholeheartedly believe her when she says, “Education is first and foremost about learning; about developing the intellectual capacities needed to succeed as professionals and human beings.”
Right on to that.
Black Students Studying Abroad & “The Next Great Migration”
This may be the most controversial title & theme I’ve ever written about. But it is not my idea, rather, it is the title of an op-ed in the Sunday New York Times of March 1, 2015, by Thomas Chatterton Williams: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/opinion/sunday/the-next-great-migration.html?_r=0
Williams is an African-American ex-pat who writes from Paris. The gist of his essay has to do with his outrage over “the extrajudicial police killings of black men and women across America.” And he asks why more black Americans are not considering migrating to a life abroad with less racism (for him) and perhaps more justice and economic opportunity abroad (not necessarily in France).
He writes: “…at a time when middle-class blacks remain unemployed at twice the rate of whites, and black college graduates have the same chance of being hired as high school-educated whites, the economic case for staying put is not airtight.”
And then comes his surprise “solution” : study abroad! Yes, he makes a serious case – in a way that my academic colleagues would not – that because black students rely more heavily (he says, according to reporting by Bloomberg) on student loans and are less likely to pay off these debts after graduation, studying abroad is a better bargain, at a far lower price. And that the experience has the potential to open new doors to careers. He also states (I checked these statistics for their accuracy with IIE Open Doors) “…even though 15 percent of American postsecondary students are black, we account for only about 5 percent of those who study abroad. This is a shame.”
Williams cites a conversation with a friend who had moved to a new job in London who told him,”The race situation back home occupies so much space in your mind, even just safety-wise, I actually never fully understood what it meant to be American, and all the advantages that come with it, until now.”
Does study abroad for black students offer a chance to live, if only for a few months or a year, the life of a “postnational” citizen? This is how Williams closes his essay.
There has been little movement in the overall number of African-American students choosing to study abroad for a long time; would Williams’ idea challenge black students to re-consider their options? I have no idea. But this essay made me think about the issue of diversifying participation in study abroad programs in a different light.
Current Data on Entering the Workforce Without Critical Skills Valued by Employers
The good news: yes, the U.S. economy is stronger and continues to add new jobs [in very strategic sectors] at a steady rate each month. The bad news: stories continue to appear which highlight the dis-connect between employers and students as to whether or not they (students) enter the job market with the type of skill sets they need to be hired (and this mis-match of expectations is wider in specific technical fields such as STEM). For example, see Jeff Selingos’ recent piece in the Washington Post on “Why are so many college students failing to gain job skills before graduation,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/01/26/why-are-so-many-college-students-failing-to-gain-job-skills-before-graduation/
What does not always appear in the collective statistics in surveys such as those cited by Selingo, is that the dis-connect is far wider by race, class and ethnicity. Rarely, for example, do surveys include any data on Native American students.
This is a complex issue because we also do not always know which employers are included in particular surveys (which sectors do they come from & who is responding: CEOs, HR managers). I did find it of interest that the January, 2015 survey Selingo cites, by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, “Falling Short: Selected Findings from Online Surveys of Employers and College Students,” https://www.aacu.org/sites/default/files/files/LEAP/2015employerstudentsurvey.pdf , includes data from a reported 400 executives at both private-sector & nonprofit organizations (rarely covered in such reports) and 613 students from both two & four-year institutions.
Here are a few findings I find are especially significant:
- Nearly all employers (96%) agree that, regardless of their chosen field of study, all students should have experiences in college that teach them how to solve problems with people whose views are different from their own, including 59% who strongly agree with this statement.
- The majority of employers think that having both field-specific knowledge and skills and a broad range of skills and knowledge that apply to a variety of fields is important for recent college graduates to achieve longterm career success at their company.
- Large majorities say they are more likely to consider a job candidate who has participated in an internship, a senior project, a collaborative research project, a field-based project in a diverse community setting with people from different backgrounds, or a community-based project.
- When it comes to considering a job candidate, employers value completion of an internship or apprenticeship most among the applied and project-based learning experiences tested. Nearly all employers say they would be more likely to consider hiring a recent college graduate who had completed an internship or apprenticeship, including three in five (60%) who say their company would be much more likely to consider that candidate.
- The majority of employers feel that colleges and universities must make improvements to ensure graduates’ workplace success. Fully 58% think improvements are needed to ensure that graduates gain the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in entry-level positions at their company, while 42% think they are doing a good job. And an even larger proportion (64%) think that improvements are needed to ensure that graduates have the skills and knowledge needed to advance within their company.
- Many employers feel that college graduates are falling short in their preparedness in several areas, including the ones employers deem most important for workplace success. College students are notably more optimistic about their level of preparedness across learning outcomes, however.
The company conducting the AACU survey above is the DC-based Hart Research Associates. They’ve been conducting similar surveys of employers and students for many years , however, given the new level of competitiveness facing college graduates since the recession, these are very important findings to pay attention to.
We’ve got to do a better job of educating students about the facts surrounding types of learning and applied experience will enhance their employability after graduation. It’s not a secret as the above survey confirms! Nor should the data points be kept from parents who, of course, play a paramount role in the decisions made by their children while in college. And it is they who have a high stake in the outcome of the job search undertaken by their children – and in how campuses prepare them to enter the workforce.
Inequalities in Global Labor Market-Where Will College-Educated Talent Come From?
McKinsey Institute estimates that over the next decade rich countries and China will need 40m more college-educated workers than they will be able to produce. At the same time, employers across the world may find themselves with 90m more low-skilled workers than they need. This glut will drag down wages, worsening inequality. In 2015, inequality has risen to the forefront on the agenda for both U.S. parties. I fully support President Obama’s focus on setting a community college degree as the new norm as a step toward closing the skills gap.
Interesting report from McKinsey Global Institute is cited in this Economist essay: http://www.economist.com/node/21556974.
Despite great efforts to improve schools and universities, workers in the emerging world are less educated than those elsewhere. Some 35% in China and a stunning 70% in India have no more than a primary education. Yet this will change: China and India, McKinsey predicts, will be the world’s main source for skilled workers over the next two decades. The two countries alone will add 184m college graduates to the global labour market. As a result, the centre of gravity of human capital and innovation is likely to shift towards Asia.
Given the tremendous rise in the of students from China & India now studying the U.S., it’s a safe assumption that our educational resources will be responsible for supplying talent to these two nations – and to other nations in need of skilled workers –…
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Global Career Compass 