Today’s high school graduates are increasingly questioning whether higher education is worth it, and that’s pushing colleges to rethink the value they bring students.

This was a key theme I heard at last week’s SXSW EDU conference, where several panels addressed what today’s generation of students want, and how colleges can respond. It was also a top-of-mind issue for me coming into the conference. As a graduate student in Stanford University’s School of Education and Public Policy department, I’ve been examining the intersection between higher education and the working world for the past two years.

One survey presented by ECMC Group during a session on “Is College Worth It? Re-bundling Higher Education” noted that today’s students are very much focused on the tangible — specifically, maximizing future career outcomes and earnings potential and building durable, technical skill sets. The survey found that 81 percent of students want skills they’ll use in the working world after college. What they’re not interested in, however, is paying the ever-rising price of tuition just to graduate without a job that can pay off those debts.

As a sign of how many students worry about the return on a college investment, about half of Gen Zers surveyed believe they can be successful through alternative pathways, said Laura Graf, senior director at ECMC Group. She and other panelists discussed the need to think more deeply about how colleges are defining the purpose and value of higher education, especially within the context of the latest generation of learners.

Plenty of folks had ideas for how colleges can respond.

Jessica Hinkle, senior vice president at Strada Education Network, said that infusing work-based learning into post-secondary education programs, along with wrap-around career prep supports, can be an effective strategy to meet the growing needs of this new generation of students.

Such work-based learning opportunities, like “microinternships”, are already being implemented in institutions like the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Launched in 2022, the university’s microinternship and mentoring program connects students with paid positions at local organizations for a couple of weeks.

Read the full article about workplace skills in higher education by Jenn Hofmann at EdSurge.