On March 22, Jeffrey Selingo published an article in The Atlantic which said
…Now a third wave in education and training has arrived, argue economists, educators, and workforce-development officials. The level of preparation that worked in the first two waves—adding more time to education early in life—does not seem sufficient in the 21st-century economy. Instead the third wave is likely to be marked by continual training throughout a person’s lifetime—to keep current in a career, to learn how to complement rising levels of automation, and to gain skills for new work. Workers will likely consume this lifelong learning in short spurts when they need it, rather than in lengthy blocks of time as they do now when it often takes months or years to complete certificates and degrees…
The need and desire for different types of education throughout life to address career demands is well-accepted. In addition, as people live longer, there is greater interest in academic pursuits in retirement whether in a classroom or through travel. Educational institutions already have the expertise to address the growing demand in continuing education. Naturally, alumni are looking to their own educational institutions first as the source for this continuing education. This is a huge opportunity in alumni engagement.
As one academic leader said to me after the very informative and thoughtful CASE event Claiming Our Story: The Imperative for Higher Education, “if our alumni are going back to school, I want it to be that they come back to our campus.” These are wise words as providing continuing education builds community and makes alumni more appreciative of the institution.
Continuing education is a financial opportunity for schools in three ways:
Alumni (and others) expect to pay tuition for it,
Alumni express appreciation for the education through donations, and
Participants may have more lucrative careers that allow them to make more significant contributions.
If your alumni go to a different school for their next educational experience, not only are the tuition dollars going to another institution, they might give their next donation to their new alma mater.
There are many models for continuing education from required professional continuing education credits (CLE, etc) to executive education programs to re-tooling opportunities such as coding to academic interest mini-courses. The demand for all these programs is growing rapidly so every institution of higher education is likely to offer some or all these types of programs in the future. Now is the time to start building or to expand this crucial area of alumni interest and engagement.
Please share your thoughts on different types of continuing education. Watch for some ideas in future posts.
