Tag: international higher education

Today I will be teaching a class for the Career Management course taught at Menlo College, and after gauging the students’ reactions to the required reading (the first two chapters of The Start-Up of You by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman), we will review three big categories in our world that disrupt the workforce: technology, globalization, and politics.

In reviewing for the class, I laughed at my own personal example for the final of the three, politics. I thought of how education as a field benefits significantly from globalization, but how dependent those positive impacts are on the political games played by world leaders. Within just the past couple of months, there has been significant tension around offering OPT (extended visa status for students graduating who want to work in the US), debates on whether to limit the number of Chinese intellectuals who come to the US (listen to episode “Freshman Orientation” of the podcast “Heartland, Mainland”), and, on the flipside, study abroad programs altering course after political protests in Hong Kong and Chile (I don’t have web references for these two, I just know that a program I work with canceled a trip to Hong Kong and a friend of my sister’s was due to study in Chile this spring, but the program was cancelled and she chose an alternative destination). Working in international education means your work is highly influenced by politics at every level, on a regular basis.

It’s difficult, therefore, to make a lot of confident predictions in the trends of international higher ed because your ability to predict these trends relies on your ability to predict political trends locally, nationally, and internationally. The ability for a group of people from Oregon can manage to bring OPT to court demonstrates how the local can connect to the global. It’s a fluid exchange, one does not solely rely on action from the other.

I think part of the goal for those of us working in international education is to take the positive attributes of globalization and propel them forward. I do feel confident in making a general statement that people who work in this field believe that intercultural exchange – global exchange – ultimately will lead us to understanding and, hopefully, more peace. Which is why we push to bring international students into the US to study as well as push people from the US to study in another country, too.

I mentioned in my last post that I am not looking forward to the day when I may need to choose whether I keep walking the path of study abroad or career services. The two are not mutually exclusive, but as I wrote last week, it’s the career services offices that are going to be more heavily invested in, at least for the near future. That’s not to say that study abroad won’t be – at many institutions, internationalization is a priority, and study abroad is a part of that. When it comes down to the wire, however, I do think career services prevails.

This means that, as I will echo to my students later today, I will need to keep an eye on the trends. And here is what I think we might start to see happen in the 2020’s as it pertains to international higher education:

Gap years.

I’ve mentioned it before, but I am slowly learning more. Many people think a “gap year” happens between high school and college, and that it entails a vacation in Europe of sorts. Yes – this does happen – but the definition of “gap year” seems to be expanding.

The Gap Year Association is the primary organization trying to promote and explore the benefits of gap years. The GYA accredits gap year programs in an effort to set up a standard to value these programs.

What would be ideal is to find ways to incorporate gap years into college degree plans, which is not a new idea. In 2018, Abigail Falik and Linda Frey argued for a gap year to equate as Freshman year; a year ago, Goldie Blumenstyk reflected on Falik’s work with Global Citizen Year; and earlier this month, Jonathan Zimmerman wrote an opinion piece that a gap year should be required by colleges – that is to say, a year of public service, not travel.

A gap year can be a year of work. A year of public service, as Zimmerman argues, where you meet people from all over the US. It can be a year of both. You can spend the first 9 months of your gap year earning money and using some of your savings to get yourself to another country where you volunteer in exchange for room and board. There are so many options.

Looking at the larger landscape, I think there’s more: A gap year can happen at any time. Who’s to say it’s not something we should encourage at any age? Ready for a career switch? Take some time off to explore through volunteer work.

Here is where these pieces – career exploration, international exploration, international and domestic intercultural exploration – can collide, along with one other key piece of the puzzle: life-long learning.

I will reiterate Hoffman’s idea to the students today, it’s important to be adaptable (pg. 24 of The Start-Up of You). The three big change factors – technology, globalization, and politics – are always at work, which means change is happening at a quickening pace. Technology, for example, is growing exponentially fast, and we humans can’t really keep up. But the scary thing is that we’re trying to.

This means we will always be learning, and it only makes sense as higher education is questioned, the world becomes more interconnected, and everything keeps moving faster than we can keep up, that we learn how to take an appropriate step back to reassess, reflect, and keep learning.

My 2020’s prediction for international higher ed: More people will start to realize the value in expanding their learning beyond the confines of “four years after high school,” age, and place. The term “gap year” will expand, and more people will be creating and pursuing their own version.

Considering France

By Kelly Davis

On October 30, 2019

In International Education, Uncategorized

The United States is not the only country questioning its higher education system, or even the admissions practices its higher education institutions follow. Times Higher Education reports that France has been taking a look at their own structure, particularly in response to the gilets jaunes (the yellow vests) protests that occurred almost one year ago in response to a tax levied on diesel fuel. The conversation around the protests here in the States, as I recall, was primarily focused on the violence caused by some protestors and the debate over whether the protestors were against climate action. The Atlantic reported that protestors were upset because the taxes were particularly difficult for lower income households, and that grievances were not related to opinions regarding climate change.

In the summer of 2013, I spent six weeks studying abroad in Paris, where I took two courses in French and spent most of my time with American students (while I don’t regret any study abroad experiences, there are times I wonder where my language skills and connections would be today if I had had more immersive experiences). In one of these classes, the professor showed us the rates for attending university in France – a jaw-dropping €283 a semester, or something like that. Or maybe that was the proposed number, up from €279 the previous academic year… and the French students, raised in a country where the public is much better at exercising a right to protest, were in an uproar over the raise in costs.

I can’t remember the numbers exactly of course – we are talking 6 years ago – but I do remember pointing out that the costs seemed to correlate with inflation rates.

In THE’s article, professors commented on “invisible channels” often barring students from higher education opportunities that have more to do with choice than with funding. Even in countries with significant investment in education and higher education, there are barriers. Costs are still associated with living, loan systems still exist to support students through their studies, as we see in Germany. No system that I have studied is perfect.

Last week, I discussed a number of topics, and among them I pointed out that while there is much the United States might benefit in learning from other countries, there are practices we should not adopt which we can simultaneously learn from practices overseas. France does not track its students as early as Germany, where students are tracked at age 10. In France, the year of determination is at approximately 15 years old (OECD, 2013). In THE’s article, an associate professor of sociology notes that the government will need to make “wider reforms” than merely rewarding the grandes écoles that increase the percentages of scholarship students they admit, and additionally alludes to the “choice of vocational tracks.”

Education is often seen as a means of increasing social mobility for the educated individual. With educated populations, the aspiration is that society as a whole will lift up. I personally believe that this is the case in theory, but with the cost of higher ed in the US and the general conversation around innovation, skills and technology happening globally, our educational systems at the higher ed level are being thrown into serious question.

I am not as familiar with the French system of education as I am with the US or even German systems, but as nations grapple with how to increase social mobility through education, the role of “choice” will have to be considered from a number of angles. Choice is something typically valued in the United States. Notions of freedom in opportunity is often the freedom in having options. Will the US reform in a way that preserves these values? Will other countries?

Liberal Arts & ROI: Tackling Challenges & Change in US Higher Ed

By Kelly Davis

On October 23, 2019

In Higher Education Policy, Uncategorized

As a Career Services advisor, the debate about the direction of US higher education looms over my work: student success is determined not just by whether or not students are employed in some capacity after graduation, but how soon they are employed after graduation, how closely their first job aligns with their degree, and how much they begin earning annually.

Skills make students employable in the first place. Hard skills, soft skills, technical skills, super skills – whatever you want to call them. And many of these skills are acquired through participation in student clubs, student athletics, internships, coops, and part-time jobs.

The whole debate focuses on whether or not attending class actually contributes to students’ skill development. In an era where grade inflation has made it easier to get an “A” and the price of higher ed is all too high, it makes sense to be asking these questions.

Here’s what I don’t understand: Why is there a crusade against the liberal arts?

The story of ROI…

One reason is for return of investment. The conversation among those working on higher ed policy or within the system seems to evade the idea of changing the system we currently have, as if we can’t challenge the free market model that higher ed has been pushed into. “It’s just the way it is,” seems to be the mindset. Meanwhile, the US public is stuck in this other mindset that higher education institutions are all at fault for the price of higher ed – most people aren’t aware of the nuances. Really, our state and federal funding of higher education has decreased since the Recession recovering only slightly and, in some cases like Alaska, worsening.

Instead of tackling the problem of costs, the conversation is shifting towards something like this quote from a Business Insider article ranking the “25 Most Valuable College Majors”: “The cost of college is higher than ever, making it important to pick a major that will be valuable in the long run, with a high likelihood of post-graduation employment and a decent expected salary.”

From the perspective of a student who needs to make these decisions now, this line of thinking makes sense. But it concerns me that some of our thought leaders are encouraging this direction rather than digging deeper and looking hard at the systemic problems in place.

Forgetting to analyze systemic issues, long-term. This is what I fear happens when we devalue the humanities and social sciences.

Degrees in history, sociology, literature, etc., are not statistically likely to pay you as much as a degree in computer science or engineering (comparable to the mean for general “business”, according to the National Association for Colleges and Employers [NACE] Winter 2019 Salary Survey). The idea is that because college is so expensive, you should put your money towards an education that will properly prepare you for a job with a starting salary higher than $55 or 60k – that way, you might actually be able to pay off your student loans by the time you’re ready to start paying for your kid’s higher education.

When this argument is made in the context of ROI, I wonder who is paying attention to the cost to provide resources for teaching these highly desirable subjects: the price of tuition is partially based on what resources you provide students at your institution. It is not as expensive for institutions to teach courses in the humanities or many of the social sciences. Major-specific, academic-related expenses can be found in the physical arts and sciences (this Polish finances site found a few pretty expensive programs that sit in these categories).

Physical arts aren’t the problem, either. Because they are costly, they are generally pricier programs and are more selective to form smaller cohorts. You can compare the number of music majors in the US to the number of engineering majors in the US, and see the rate at which those numbers are declining or increasing. We don’t see a push for musicians and filmmakers in the US like we see the push for primary care physicians and engineers.

It’s not to say that we don’t need engineers or primary care physicians, because we obviously do. It’s for the higher demand that institutions such as NYU are making movements to offer medical degrees for free.

I understand the push to make med school more affordable for people, and I fully agree with it. But this model is not going to push into the liberal arts, which means that the high cost of a Bachelor’s degree in history won’t decline, causing the number of history majors to continue to decline, for example.

Meanwhile, the push for higher education to prove its delivery of skills-competent graduates is becoming muddled. There are companies seeking hard, practical skills, but these skills need to be constantly updated every 6 years, according to an article published in NACE (2018). Higher education can offer methods for students to learn some of these skills, but the focus should be the “soft skills,” competencies such as critical thinking and problem-solving. These skills are improved every day with more and more practice. They take time and reflection to develop, making 3-4 year obtaining a Bachelor degree a great time to enhance these skills, preparing students for the future workplace where AI is likely to take over more repetitive tasks.

These “soft skills” are at the core of the liberal arts, but students often get lost in the concepts of developing the ability to code or using advanced tools in an excel spreadsheet (certainly necessary, but not the only necessary thing to learn while at college!).

What else do we need to consider as we look at higher education from a systemic point of view?

Not everyone needs to, or should, go to college. Furthermore, we push college on some all too soon.

Not everyone thrives from studying all the time, or from research. But flip that around – some people do. One is not better than the other, yet we continue to think otherwise in the US. There are still plenty of parents who think that their children should only aspire to Ivy League schools (which makes our Admissions processes chaotic), and college is still seen as the most promising means of moving up in class.

Here are the challenges that face us in the US from this line of thinking:

First and foremost, this is a class issue. If we could fundamentally change our culture to recognize the value in “blue-collar” as much as we do in “white-collar,” and get rid of those definitions, we wouldn’t push college on kids at all, or at least as early.

Second, we push college on people too soon. Some students are not ready to commit to a major at the age of 19. Just last night, a friend of mine said if she could go back and do her Bachelor’s degree again, she would take a completely different path. I have met plenty of brilliant people who were not ready to continue sitting in a classroom after high school. They needed to have some work experience and travel – see other aspects of life and the world outside of school – before recognizing what their passion was.

(And this is why I am increasingly inspired and enthralled by the concept of gap years… which I hope will be a topic I write about soon enough.)

Third, this all culminates into a horrible college admissions process where we see parents cheating the system, small liberal arts colleges that can often be cheaper options for lower-income students start falling behind in enrollments, and students struggle at all class levels to afford college.

What are ways we can be more innovative when approaching these challenges?

Look internationally to learn both what to implement, and what not to implement.

Recently I have seen Brandon Busteed, President of Kaplan University Partners, publishing posts comparing the UK higher education system to ours in the US. This is a step in the right direction, this international comparison. There is a lot we can learn from systems in other countries – both what to do and what not to do.

1: The one thing I do like about the United States is the flexibility we have to make connections between our degrees and work experience. Unless you want to be an engineer, doctor, work in any lab, or be an accountant, there are millions of jobs out there that don’t require a specific kind of degree. Job descriptions might request certain qualifications, but if you can find a way to get your foot in the door through some skill you have, article you’ve written, or connection you’ve made, there are many ways to forge your own pathway in your career.

I believe this allows students the ability to explore learning while they obtain their Bachelor’s degree. Explore subjects, learn to be critical and think deeply, which is what the whole practice was supposed to be about. This is probably one of the best ways to develop those highly desirable skills, problem solving and critical thinking.

While Germany has a great system for students to be trained in vocational areas and receive employment afterwards – which I think would be a phenomenal system to replicate here in the US – this isn’t for everyone. Some people, maybe less than 50% of our population, want the time to research and explore, want the flexibility in what they end up doing right after they receive their degree. They want more time to figure it out.

And while I praise this system that Germany uses, I am not praising the education system as a whole. The students who end up pursuing the dual system often have little choice in the matter, because Germany tests their students into tracks at the age of 10 (OECD “Education Policy Outlook: Germany”, April 2014, pg. 4). In the US, tracking typically occurs in specific subjects, but it depends on the school district (OECD, “Viewing Education in the United States Through the Prism of PISA”, 2010, pg. 48).

2: Critical thinking and problem solving skills need constant reflection and teaching. It’s important to teach continuous learning, fueled by personal motivation and initiative. It’s important to have citizens who are willing to both question and collaborate. (So make sure you keep that in mind, NCAA.)

Karin Fischer wrote a great article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed about the Asian University for Women and why the President of the university chose to focus on liberal arts rather than vocational practices. Reflecting on the historical context of British colonialism in India and Bangladesh and its influences on valuing a degree in medicine over something like sociology, the founder of AUW, Kamal Ahmad, is quoted in Fischer’s article: “It’s nothing but prejudice to think that poor people can’t aspire to higher education.” According to Fischer, Ahmad argues that “The Liberal Art’s impact can be more far-reaching… because it nurtures broader aptitudes.” She quotes him again: “We’re saying, Yes, you have dexterity in your hands, but you also have the capacity to imagine.”

Powerful words. Something for the US to keep in mind as we reimagine higher education: critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity in fields such as history, sociology, literature, politics, languages, the arts… these are all invaluable. And we need at least some bright minds to focus on these theories, practices, and this research now more than ever – this path, too, must be accessible.

International Higher Education Researcher & Educator

Tag: international higher education

Predictions for International Higher Ed in the 2020’s

Liberal Arts & ROI: Tackling Challenges & Change in US Higher Ed