A four-year liberal arts program culminating in a bachelor's degree will likely continue to play a central role. At the same time, to salvage the American middle class, suck toxic resentment out of our politics, and build a more equitable economy, we must reimagine higher education, workforce training, and how taxpayers fund both. The current system saddles too many with debt, delivers good outcomes for too few, and skews opportunity away from people of color. It’s time to build a postsecondary and training system that delivers better outcomes, meets the demands of our economy, and keeps the American dream alive.

Two converging crises bring us to this point.

First, spiking student debt has become unsustainable, tripling over the past 20 years and swelling the ranks of Americans paying for college without earning a degree. This, along with the paradigm shifts of the pandemic, has triggered a broader reassessment of higher education. A new poll shows that, for the first time, a clear majority of Americans (56 percent) doubt the value of a college degree, with skepticism especially high among younger respondents.

Second, over half of all US jobs are now “middle skill” positions, requiring more than a high school diploma but less than a four-year college degree. This includes millions of jobs in IT, health, the manufacturing and skilled trade sectors, and the army of electricians needed to fully embrace renewables. These jobs often pay wages sufficient to support a family with a single earner. And yet, just 18 percent of working-age Americans have actually earned credentials beyond a high school diploma but less than a full bachelor’s degree. This astounding misalignment leaves millions of critical jobs unfilled and millions of Americans missing opportunities for meaningful economic mobility. With a huge majority of college freshmen reporting they enrolled to secure a good job with good wages, our postsecondary system is failing at what its consumers have identified to be its most critical function.

In the face of these crises, how do we fill our gaping middle skills gap? Two-year associate degrees are one piece of this puzzle. But while some community colleges have pathways with a strong return on investment (ROI), barely 40 percent of Americans enrolled in a two-year associate program receive a degree in six years, and while more affordable than four-year institutions, community colleges are a significant driver of debt.

The other answer lies in what so many elected officials describe as “job training.” But the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), the flagship federal legislation governing job training, badly needs an update. A 2017 randomized evaluation across 28 sites found no detectable wage increases from WIOA-funded training programs. A new report released in March from Harvard’s Project on Workforce found median annual earnings of just $29,388 nine months after completing a WIOA-funded training program, implying America’s most consequential federal job-training apparatus leaves its median participant earning less than the majority of high school dropouts.

Read the full article about job training by Roger Low at Stanford Social Innovation Review.