A New Book Describes The Experience First College
“For every employer I interviewed for this book, from the largest tech companies to smaller and medium size businesses in cities or rural American, the most important resume signal today for candidates to get hired is not where they went to college, or even whether they went to college, but their experience relevant to the role they’ll be asked to perform. And experts anticipate that this will become even more of a trend if artificial intelligence begins to eliminate more entry-level jobs,” writes Kathleen deLaski, author of the new book Who Needs College Anymore? Imagining a Future Where Degrees Don’t Matter.
The typical college degree does not provide graduates with the experience they need for the work role they will be asked to perform, creating an experience gap for graduates. DeLaski’s solution to this problem is an experience first model of college. This approach prepares students for jobs by integrating elements of what colleges traditionally offer with significant work experiences, especially for the career that interests the student.
The experience first college is a place where learners can receive a college degree that includes work experience or one of many other credentials or learning and training products connected to work experience. For those who do not complete a degree, students should have the option to reenter college when needed, sequencing or stacking credentials for additional certification, including a college degree.
DeLaski calls this the stepladder approach, comparing it to the elevator approach of the traditional college degree. A redesigned college that leads with experience is “any post-high school path that sets a learner up for a family-sustaining wage and opens their eyes to their possibilities.”
A Future Where Degrees Don’t Matter
The book is based on 150 interviews with various K-12, postsecondary, and community stakeholders. It relies on design thinking research from the Education Design Lab, founded in 2013 by deLaski, where she is the board chair. She is a senior advisor to Harvard University’s Project on Workforce, teaches at George Mason University, and is president of the deLaski Family Foundation. DeLaski spent twenty years as a journalist, including time as ABC News White House correspondent and chief spokesperson for the Pentagon during the Clinton Administration.
The book includes two opening chapters on how the college degree became the default way to prepare young people for work and careers, including how that approach is under scrutiny and faces mounting skepticism from several quarters. The next four chapters discuss the experience first college model from the perspective of four stakeholder groups—employers, colleges, high schools, and learners. It closes with a chapter on redefining college.
Nearly every chapter includes a summary of design criteria for the experience first college based on the chapter topic, including a final set of ten design principles for designing an experience first college. It includes a discussion guide for five different audiences—employers, high school educators, colleges, nonprofits and governments, and learners and families—also available on the book’s website.
A Changing College Enrollment Landscape
College enrollment patterns have changed for young people after high school. Undergraduate and graduate college enrollment peaked in 2010 at around 21 million students, with enrollment down nearly 12%. Moreover, the pandemic also took a toll on enrollment, though a Fall 2024 National Student Clearinghouse Research Center report shows that total postsecondary enrollment has rebounded since 2019.
This report also shows that much of this rebound is driven by a significant enrollment increase in alternative credential and certificate programs, up nearly 10% yearly and 28.9% since 2019. Meanwhile, enrollment in bachelor’s degree programs increased by only 2.9% and associate programs by 6.3%, significantly below 2019 levels. Additionally, around 1.6 million high school students enrolled in dual enrollment classes that allow them to take college-level courses.
“Learners are asking for new models even before those models are well understood, well publicized, well-funded or well evaluated,” writes deLaski.
Models For The Experience First College
DeLaski describes five models that non-elite colleges are testing as they create the experience first college, including an example of one college for each model. The models are not exclusive but describe a predominant approach.
1. Making skills visible. Colleges describe the job skills embedded in their current courses. Western Governors University, a non-profit, distance learning, competency-based college, has developed 15,000 occupational skill descriptors across 175 job clusters in the college’s four degree areas. Mentors help students develop personal SkillED profiles digitized in a skills wallet. The University acquired the technology platform Craft Education to expand its efforts at integrating work-based learning into its skills-based student learning approach.
2. Validating job skills. Colleges award students pursuing bachelor’s degrees with non-degree, industry-recognized certificates proving their job skills. The University of Texas System provides all students, faculty, and staff across its nine universities with cost-free access to Coursera’s Career Academy. Over 30 career areas offer some 50 professional certificate programs with companies like Microsoft and Google.
3. Experience sampling. Colleges provide students with work experiences in acquiring a skill or pursuing a career. The University of North Dakota System is working to offer every student a work experience as part of their academic degree program. They are testing two technology platforms—Riipen and Forage—to match students with industry experience on-site or through over 300 job simulations with 125 employers. This allows students to sample professional experiences inside their traditional classrooms.
4. Micro-pathways. Colleges place less emphasis on a degree pathway and provide students with pathways that develop specific skills and roles and award certificates. Pima Community College in Tucson has a FastTrack program offering six micro-pathways ranging from healthcare technology to automotive technology. These 12-week courses typically include work experience, can often be paid for using workforce grants, and allow students to return to the institution for other related and stackable credentials.
5. Embracing the weave. Colleges provide job experiences throughout the entire time students pursue a degree. Northeastern University requires every student to participate in a full-time, paid co-op work learning program alternating between academic study and work. Students are assigned a co-op coordinator based on their major and full-time participation in co-op activities for six months while they don’t pay tuition.
From The Elevator To The Stepladder
DeLaski uses two images to summarize her message. The new college reset moves from a learner riding the upward bound elevator of the traditional four-year college degree to a learner climbing a stepladder. Here is how she writes about the stepladder:
“You take a step to build skills, go out and earn money against them, then tackle the next education step, or wait, if life gets in the way. Either way, you build earnings power in shorter chunks and gravitate toward a flexible goal.
With this new college reset, we can also set up a new construct with multiple college products offered by more providers, that, when proven out, can take learners to the same destination as the degree, maybe further in some cases.”
This experience first approach overcomes the challenges created by the experience gap. It provides individuals with more pathways to jobs and opportunity, exemplifying what I call opportunity pluralism. It develops learners who have acquired knowledge and worked with mentors who help them build social networks, both of which foster the development of an occupational identity. Knowledge + Networks + Identity = Opportunity.