Education Design Lab

Leveling the Career Field for Underserved College Graduates

Model and Strategy

Employers increasingly insist that employees master the “21st Century skills” needed to succeed in an increasingly complex work environment. Jobs of the future will require empathy, resilience, collaboration and the like, in addition to traditional domain knowledge. And yet, colleges have largely ignored the development of these skills in young people. This increasing emphasis on soft skills provides a critical opportunity for historically underserved students to compete for good jobs. Research shows standard hiring signals such as GPA and “brand name” institutions correlate poorly with such skills, opening doors of opportunity for those who lack personal networks, Ivy League degrees, or a 4.0 GPA. Employers, working with the Lab, have emphasized that they would love to identify these students. This project will create a statistically valid proof point that the intentional development of these skills can provide a leg up in the competition for high-paying jobs.

Impact

The Lab’s mission is to create evidence-based proof points that spotlight solutions capable of driving a more equitable higher education system. The evidence gathered from this project will demonstrate how the development of 21st Century skills can improve the odds of historically underserved students succeeding in the competition for high-paying jobs. These improved academic and career outcomes will signal a better quality educational experience, critical in a market and regulatory environment that increasingly expects and rewards institutions that offer such higher quality educational experiences. This will encourage more institutions to develop their own 21st Century skills programs, impacting more students in their quest to compete in the 21st Century global economy.

Evidence to support this approach is anecdotal but compelling. The national dialogue regarding the importance of 21st Century skills in the workplace continues unabated. From the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the American Association of Colleges and Universities, leaders have been vocal as to the growing demand for these skills in the workforce and the need to develop these skills in our young people. But institutions of higher education, grappling with budget shortfalls and a multitude of competing priorities, raise the crucial question of efficacy. That is, where is the statistical evidence that development of these skills will lead to better jobs for our young people and level the playing field for “new traditional” students? Driving towards that answer is the purpose and ambition of this project.

Leadership

  • Kathleen

    Kathleen deLaski

    Founder