Yves Salomon-Fernandez: College completion and the new world of work
Logo of Greenfield Community College.
From The New England Journal of Higher Education, a service of The New England Board of Higher Education (nebhe.org)
GREENFIELD, Mass.
For Massachusetts—a state that ranks third highest in the nation for cost of living—a local educated workforce is critical. A tight labor market exists for a competitively skilled workforce across vocational/technical and professional positions. The future of work in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is disruptive and paying attention to it is a strategic imperative for Massachusetts.
Recently, the Massachusetts Department and Board of Higher Education made “equity” a priority for the public higher education sector. This is potentially a game-changer. Over the past three decades, the racial wealth divide in the U.S. has grown significantly. Black and Latino families are more likely to have zero to negative wealth. A 2015 report of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston showed that the trends in wealth disparities hold true in Massachusetts.
Community colleges in Massachusetts enroll more than 45% of students matriculating at public higher education institutions. As income and wealth disparity grow in our state and as we become increasingly diverse, a focus on equity of access and outcomes, like college completion, becomes imperative for the continued economic vitality of the state. More than 80% of community college graduates remain in Massachusetts. Investing in completion for community college students is a very safe bet.
Managing completion expectations
A focus on college completion is essential for our state. However, the public discourse on completion rates at community colleges generally reveals a very superficial understanding of community college students and the resources available to colleges to address the impediments to student success. For starters, 65% of students who enroll at community colleges in Massachusetts are not ready to undertake college-level work. Getting them ready for college-level work as they matriculate part-time and manage the complexity of their lives means added time to completion. The barriers to college completion are not rooted in problems that can be solved with simple performance and accountability—although both are needed.
Community colleges have the most comprehensive mission in the higher education sector. Our students come with the most complex assets and deficits. We serve the most academically gifted and the least prepared. We are “open access.” Students come directly from high school and come as adults who never enrolled or finished their postsecondary education. They may take a few courses to help them build the confidence to matriculate in bachelor’s degree programs and transfer without graduating. In rural communities, we know that community colleges are even more crucial for the local economic vitality. In a longitudinal study of more than 2,000 rural communities in 44 states, Washington State University scholars Andrew Crookston and Gregory Hooks found that job growth rates were significantly greater in rural areas with a community college versus those without one.
To understand the challenges related to completion at community colleges, one needs to fully grasp the profile of students attending these open-access institutions. A 2018 study by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce showed that low-income students, who predominantly attend community colleges, struggle to balance work, secure food and housing for themselves and their families, attain good grades and ultimately graduate. Many also struggle to find reliable child care.
Implications of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Change is here. More than prior periods of technological advance, the Fourth Industrial Revolution is marked by its rapid and unparalleled change. Significant advancements in technology are leading to unprecedented displacements of workers, especially in the lowest-skilled and lowest-paid jobs. Technology, knowledge, talent and industries are converging in ways that demand that our academic and workforce programs be more interdisciplinary and more integrated. Nanotechnology, genetic engineering, biocomputers, media, 3D printing and other technologies have radically changed information technology, telecommunications, agriculture, healthcare, manufacturing and so many other industries.
We need new approaches to workforce development—a change in paradigm for the mid-21st century and beyond. Moreover, Massachusetts should equitably manage its growth in ways that relieve congestion in parts of the state and intentionally address population declines in areas that also happen to have lower cost of living.
Where do we go from here?
If we wish to achieve a Massachusetts where residents have more disposable income, can afford to live in the state—and where we are preparing students for jobs that are being created but don’t yet exist—we must make significantly increasing community college completion rates a statewide priority. Below are some considerations for state policymakers:
1. Coordinate statewide investment in high-impact practices that lead to completion across the board, not as competitive annual contests where funding is not guaranteed.
2. Give community colleges the autonomy to decide how best to invest funding for high-impact and innovative practices. This also assumes that funding is adequate enough and is sustained over multiple years.
3. Understand that rural areas have more socioeconomic diversity than racial diversity. Formulas that emphasize population density and define diversity only in terms of race and ethnicity limit higher education opportunities for the rural poor.
4. Expand early college high school in ways that benefit both K-12 school districts and community colleges (especially in rural areas).
5. Develop a statewide assessment of preparedness for jobs of the future, identify key industries for regional investments, and align funding and accountability with workforce and equity goals identified through this process.
Yves Salomon-Fernandez is president of Greenfield Community College, in the Pioneer Valley, in western Massachusetts. She sits on the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Community Development Advisory Council. Her Twitter handle is @PrezYves.
Newport event on smart cities and the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Street lamps in Amsterdam have been upgraded to allow municipal councils to dim the lights based on pedestrian use.
From Llewellyn King, long-time contributor to New England Diary and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS
Dear Friends,
I will be speaking about smart cities and the Fourth Industrial Revolution at The Pell Center, Salve Regina University, Newport, RI, at 10 a.m. on Friday, April 5.
There is no charge, and refreshments will be served before the lecture. You are most welcome to bring a guest/s.
Here is the registration link, please feel free to share it:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/smart-cities-gateway-to-the-fourth-industrial-revolution-tickets-57413347869
The Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy building, in a former Gilded Age mansion.
I would be honored and delighted if you would attend.
Cheers,
Llewellyn
Executive Producer and Host
White House Chronicle, on PBS;
Columnist, InsideSources Syndicate;
Commentator, SiriusXM Radio;
Founder/Host, ME/CFS Alert on YouTube
Llewellyn King: Prepare for the convulsion of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
“The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, by Viktor Vasnetsov.
WEST WARWICK, R.I.
It isn’t starting with a bang, but don’t be deceived: The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is underway, and companies and institutions that ignore it will be overwhelmed by it. Individuals will adapt to it as best we can, as we always have.
In short 4IR is the fusing of the digital, physical and biological spheres. It’s the interconnection of everything, bringing change in companies, jobs, schools and eventually government. Government won’t to be able to stand idly by when it sees traditional businesses upended and huge changes in how we work and study, and where.
As 4IR moves ahead one can reasonably contemplate a time when body parts will be printed, robots will prepare restaurant food and drone taxis will take us to the airport, where departures will be handled without human intervention -- because you were verified through facial recognition when you bought your ticket on your smartphone, you won’t need to do anything but walk through security and onto a plane, which has a cabin crew to look after you but no pilots.
Behind and driving the revolution is artificial intelligence, commanding everything from farms, where tractors will start themselves and plow or reap without a human in sight, to street lights that turn off when nothing is moving and back on as needed, to manufacturing that will be dominated by 3D printing, better referred to as additive manufacturing.
The troubadour of 4IR is Klaus Schwab who created the World Economic Forum back in 1971, the world’s most important ideas mart known as Davos, after Davos-Klosters the Swiss resort where the forum meets every year. This year Davos kicks off on Jan. 22 and will be devoted to what Schwab, 80, a German economist and engineer, has called “Globalization 4.0”.
The first forum to look at 4IR was in 2016. Schwab has written two books on the subject -- The Fourth Industrial Revolution and Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution -- and has been ceaseless in promoting the future while warning of it. He told Gerard Baker, the former executive editor of The Wall Street Journal, in a TV interview that enumerating the challenges wasn’t enough, there need to be solutions as well.
A note: Don’t think you can join the 3,000 participants this year. It’s by invitation only. And if you get one, Davos hotel rooms -- plain vanilla rooms – can cost $900 a night and suites can go for $5,000 a night. When I checked, there were few vacancies. The movers and shakers start early.
The three past industrial revolutions are listed by Schwab as the replacement of animal power by water and then steam power, the latter at the beginning of the 18th Century; the deployment of electricity, starting in the late 19th century; and the digital revolution of the last part of the 20th Century.
The Davos meeting will examine the upheaval besetting the world with 4IR and how it’ll be managed. It’s what Schwab calls Globalization 4.0. “We must develop a comprehensive and globally shared view of how technology is affecting our lives and reshaping our economic, social, cultural, and human environments. There has never been a time of greater promise, or greater peril,” he says.
Andre Kudelski, a Silicon Valley veteran, now head of the eponymous Swiss high-tech company that bears his name, says, “A skilled engineer can take control remotely of any connected ‘thing.’ Society has not yet realized the incredible scenarios this capability creates.”
Says Robert Shiller, a Yale University economics professor and 2013 Nobel Prize winner, “We cannot wait until there are massive dislocations in our society to prepare for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”
Others dream of a cleaner, safer and healthier world. Dileep George, an artificial intelligence and neuroscience researcher, quoted by the forum, says, “Imagine a robot capable of treating Ebola patients or cleaning up nuclear waste.”
Leon Trotsky, a veteran of the Russian Revolution, said, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” He might well be paraphrased to say, “We may not be interested in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, but it is interested in us.”
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS. His email is llewellynking1@gmail.com. He’s based in Rhode Island and Washington, D.C.