Connections

Perhaps you remember the show on PBS several years ago called Connections.  It was a fun show where the host, science historian James Burke,  would start with some fairly standard item or concept and draw connections to current items.  The development of the connections would span centuries or sometimes more.  The result would be a relationship for example, of a 16th century Dutch ship and plastics.

The item that started my current connections process was a report on CNBC's website quoting the head of Siemens as saying that it while unemployment in the US remained high, it was difficult for Siemens to find skilled Americans to fill positions it had available.  You may have heard this same comment from leaders in the information technology industry. The next item in the puzzle was a report in several papers and Fast Company magazine about PayPal co-founder and investor Peter Thiel offering $100,000 to winners of a contest to start an interesting new business.  The catch is that the winners must forego college or if in college already, drop out for the two years of the award. Third was a report published by the Harvard Graduate School of Education entitled Pathways toProsperity. This report discusses alternatives to a college education and the growing need for some type of post secondary education to be successful in the world of work. The last piece is the battle over the US national debt and federal spending.

So how do these connect?  Working in or observing  private sector business, we see that when faced with lean times businesses generally focus on their core competencies and divest themselves of those things that can be better done by an outside group or simply abandoned.  Networking company Cisco recently demonstrated this by cutting the Flip camcorder from its product lineup. So as we see successful business people suggesting that college is over-hyped, overpriced and insufficiently rigorous; when businesses can't find skilled workers despite 9+ percent unemployment and schools of education pointing out significant shortcomings in the preparation of future workers one has to wonder what besides handwringing will help solve the problem.

Let's start with higher education. The debate on whether colleges should provide job skill-training or a more liberal education (classic definition) is not new. What is newer is the amount of federal monies spent on post secondary education either through grants to universities or through loans and grants to students and their families. Some more politically conservative economists suggest that the increase in the cost of higher education above the inflation rate is directly related to the amount that the federal government is willing to lend students.  More lending equals higher costs. The fact that there are few controls on the educational programs these federally funded students take contributes, in my view, to the problems facing Siemens.

With a federal budget that is out of control, it may be time for political leaders to place priorities on what programs those funds are used for. (Oh the horror!) Like a business determining its core competency, the government should participate with business in identifying high-need jobs in the economy and fund educational programs that support them. That is not to say that the wide variety of degree programs with "studies" in their names shouldn't exist, only that limited federal monies should not support them. That same process should apply to other post-secondary programs too.  Just how many federally funded cosmetologists do we need?

Next, let's look at industry.  The Siemens article begs the question, "Just what responsibility does a business have in providing skill training to its own workers or potential workers?" Is it fair to blame the US workforce and education establishment for not providing workers that meet Siemens' standards? I don't think so. As the Pathway to Prosperity article suggests, new ways of approaching post secondary training are needed. That just might require significant participation by industry.  What about the Siemens School of Manufacturing and Engineering Science as part of or in partnership with a community college?  How about the American Express College of Finance and Banking on the campus of some state university? Is the online Microsoft College of Software Engineering and Design a possibility? If not, why not?  And I'm not simply talking about naming rights to some building or an endowed chair. I mean faculty and staff who work for industry assigned to the school, much like employees are assigned to training departments now.

If public institutions aren't interested in effective partnerships (read shared control) then should large companies or industry groups form independent schools or institutes that can provide the skill training?  Can they provide meaningful certification programs which provide a documented skill set recognized within an industry that works in a similar fashion to college credits?  Can accreditation schemes be developed that allow this training to apply to more than associates or bachelors of applied science degrees?  Are applied science degrees where considerable content is provided by business sufficient for some significant part of the workforce?

I'm certain pockets of these kinds of activities exist already. In fact, I'm involved with one. It is time for these programs to grow. My sense is that one of the consequences of the current economic malaise will be the jobs that people left when the recession started will require significantly different skill sets when hiring picks up.