‘College for all’ needs to include working adults

Here is an excellent article dealing with the knowledge economy and the increasing need for postsecondary education. Anthony P. Carnavale addresses the demand for more knowledge workers, the “skyrocketing” wage premium for postsecondary education, college as workforce development, and the potential for worker shortages. 

What concerns me is his opening section, when he talks about “college for all” as being about “children.”  However, it is clear that he understands that college is not just about young people and the next generation of workers, but is also about the current workforce and the need to educate working adults.  He references the fact that jobs requiring only a high school education have shrunk to less than 17% of jobs while those requiring some college have expanded to over 75% of current jobs and those requiring at least a bachelor’s degree have expanded to over 50%.

It is disturbing that, despite the fact that our nation and its economy depends on having an increasingly educated workforce, too often the focus is only on the next generation and does not include our current workforce.  “College for all” should include not only children, but working adults.  We should stop asserting that college for adults is just a matter of personal gain. We must recognize that it is a societal need, indeed imperative, that we avoid a shortage of knowledge workers in this increasingly competitive world.

I believe there needs to be increased attention to providing the current workforce with postsecondary education opportunities.  If we are facing shortages of knowledge workers to compete in a world economy, shouldn’t we be thinking about strategies to work not only with young students, but working adults as well?

What are your thoughts? Are we facing a crisis in a shortage of knowledge workers? If so, how should we address that?

Mike