Daily Lumina News 081921

College and career advisors are scrambling to connect with at-risk students who may be choosing low-paying jobs over a college education that could set them up for more lucrative careers.
But higher education experts worry a rebounding economy, prevalence of COVID-19 vaccines, and in-person learning won’t be enough to draw students who have turned their backs on post-high school education and training.

Workers enrolled in IBM’s software engineering apprenticeship program can now get college credit for their labor, turning 12 months of on-the-job training into roughly three semesters’ worth of academic credit.
IBM is the latest company to win recognition from the American Council on Education's College Credit Recommendation Service as part of its recently launched Apprenticeship Pathways project that allows apprentices at selected companies to earn digital credentials they can apply to six participating institutions.

The typical way to think of higher education is as a straight line—one that leads from high school, to a college, and then to a job. But for so many college students, what actually happens is far messier and sporadic.
As founder of an experimental college, Peter Smith has advocated for new models of adult learning for more than 50 years. On this podcast, he discusses what he calls the “educational underground”—the experimental programs and “hidden credentials” people get when they aren’t on the traditional straight line of learning beyond high school.

People returning to the workforce after the pandemic are expecting more from their employers, pushing companies to raise pay, give bonuses, and improve health care and tuition plans.
Yet many workers are also seeking something else: a career path, not a dead-end job. In some instances, their demands are already reshaping corporate policies.