A lot has been made recently through various think pieces in a variety of publications pondering the value and future of higher education. The basic premise in these musings is the existential question: does higher ed still matter?
At the LSE Festival in London earlier this summer, Lord David Willets explained that as the number of people going to universities has increased, the marginal return for the marginal graduate has fallen. Willets goes on to explain, however, that surveys show that 87% of people who went to university thought it was a good decision, albeit with more expressing regret around their choice of subject.
This is borne out by the data, with enrolment in colleges across the OECD growing by 3 million in the decade to 2022, with growth enduring in the arts and humanities, despite widespread concern around the financial returns of such degrees. While this is common across much of the world, the situation isn’t as clear-cut in America, where college enrollment fell by 5% between 2013 and 2022.
A Skills-Based Labor Market
For Kathleen deLaski, this is a sign of people beginning to vote with their feet, at least in the US. In her recent book, “Who Needs College Anymore? Imagining a Future Where Degrees Won’t Matter,” she outlines the growth in skills-based recruitment that is underpinning a labor market in which a college degree is no longer a guaranteed passport to a good job.
This has long been the argument of organizations like Opportunity@Work, which champion workers who are “skilled through alternative pathways”. They argue that there are around 70 million of these workers in the U.S. alone, and a more skills-based approach does a better job of enabling employers to identify a more diverse talent pool, and of enabling employees to showcase the full range of their talents.
There are widely acknowledged problems with university education as it currently stands, not least of which include the under-representation from poorer communities and the lack of a clear pathway into middle- and high-wage jobs that this undermines.
Broader Benefits of Higher Education
Of course, university has never been purely a simplistic pipeline whereby people enter in at one end and emerge at the other fit for work. It’s been more about helping to create rounded human beings, and this has arguably never been more relevant than it is today.
For instance, at the LSE Festival, Dr Zhamilya Mukasheva explained how it’s critically important that we’re not blind consumers of whatever generative AI tells us, but are able to critically analyse the outputs and ensure that it’s relevant and appropriate. So, having wide-ranging skills is not going to diminish in value, even as AI grows ever more capable.
Similarly, Professor Aaron Reeves explained that even in a more skills-based labor market, the ability to know “how” to learn is as important as “what” we learn. After all, if the shelf life of skills is getting shorter, there will be a growing need to refresh and replenish our skills throughout our lives, so learning how to learn and having that appreciation of the learning process are crucial, lifelong skills to develop.
Social Networking
Dr Boris Walbaum, Founder and President of Forward College, a pan-European university launched in 2021, designed to develop all forms of human intelligence and skills, explained that one of the biggest benefits students cite is the social aspect of their time at college. This isn’t just the bars and sports teams, although that obviously plays a part, but the wider connections one forms while at university that can play such a crucial role throughout one’s life.
While there remain clear challenges around access to university for underrepresented groups, universities do nonetheless provide a melting pot of ideas from people from all walks of life. The speakers were aligned in the societal value that this provides in a world that is increasingly polarized, not least between those with degrees and those without.
Universities can help to bridge that gap by also providing a broader educational experience. Forward College is one of a new breed of schools that include Minerva University and the London Interdisciplinary School that are aiming to take a different approach to university education that is less aimed at providing a narrow, but deep, education and more at providing a more generalist technical and cultural education that they believe provides a foundation for people to build on throughout their life.
The Future of Higher Ed: Flexible, Lifelong Learning
As the nature of work evolves and the expectations placed on education systems grow more complex, the binary of “degree or no degree” feels increasingly outdated. Instead, a new paradigm is emerging, one where universities, employers, and learners must co-create more flexible, inclusive, and lifelong models of education.
Whether through microcredentials, skills wallets, or reimagined campuses like Forward College, the future of higher education may not lie in choosing sides, but in blending tradition with transformation. The challenge now is to ensure that this future remains equitable, responsive, and human-centered, whatever shape it ultimately takes.
