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For most of the 20th century, high school was enough for a shot at middle-class status and wages. Eventually high school was surpassed by postsecondary education as the preferred route to professional and managerial jobs in the post-World War II era. These days, young workers rarely go anywhere in the American job market without at least some postsecondary education or training. This article considers the future of employment trends in the United States including the potential influence of globalization. Show less

This report analyzes the effects of the low-skill/low-wage equilibrium on the U.S. South. This phenomenon occurs when supply and demand for skilled workers balance at the lower end of the pay and educational achievement scale and is the situation confronting many of the Southern states. The authors identify four key findings that contribute to these issues: (1) while education demand and attainment is improving in the region, it is still a decade behind national averages; (2) post-secondary talent is draining from the region, with college graduates seeking high-skill employers elsewhere; (3) The industry profile of the South makes the region vulnerable to job losses during recession events - the South tends to lose more jobs and has fewer options for replacing them; and (4) post-secondary education and training for the workforce will be key to creating or attracting high-paying and high-skill jobs to the region. The report provides a detailed state-by-state breakdown of job projections by industry and occupation for the region. Breaking out of a low-skill equilibrium is no small feat. States can escape the quandary by producing more workers with post-secondary education and training; modernizing existing industries; and attracting new ones.

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This report analyses enrollment trends at 4,400 postsecondary institutions by race and institutional selectivity over the past 15 years. Since 1995, 82 per cent of new white enrollments have gone to the 468 most selective colleges, while 72 per cent of new Hispanic enrollment and 68 per cent of new African-American enrollment have gone to the two-year open-access schools. These separate higher education pathways matter because resources matter. The selective colleges spend anywhere from two to almost five times as much on instruction per student as the open-access colleges. Even among equally qualified white, African-American and Hispanic students, these pathways are not only separate but they bring unequal results. More than 30 per cent of African-Americans and Hispanics with a high school grade point average (GPA) higher than 3.5 go to community colleges compared with 22 per cent of whites with the same GPA.

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Hard times are becoming better times for most college graduates, though how much better varies widely among college majors - and for Communications and Journalism majors, whose unemployment rates are still rising, better times have yet to arrive. Overall, however, unemployment rates among college graduates are declining. The earnings advantage they enjoy over high school diploma workers is holding up, though this is due in part to declining earnings among the latter group. But the recovery is far from complete. The national trend on earnings has been flat or slightly declining, and earnings among college graduates are no exception. A full recovery in the employment of college graduates, especially at the Bachelor's degree level, may be as far off as 2017 and a full recovery in earnings may take longer.

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It still pays to earn a college degree but not all college degrees are created equal. While graduates, parents, and journalists raise thoughtful questions about the worth of a college degree, this update confirms what [the authors] said all along: it still pays to earn one. As [the US] recovered from the recession during 2010 and 2011, college graduates fared better than less educated workers. Overall unemployment rates during this period were nine-10 per cent for non-college graduates compared to 4.6-4.7 per cent for college graduates 25 years of age or older. However, recent college graduates with a Bachelor's degree or better are still bearing the greatest unemployment risk, with unemployment rates ranging from a low of 4.8 per cent to a high of 14.7 per cent depending on their major. Despite the slow recovery, the overall unemployment rate for recent college graduates is 7.9 per cent and the overall unemployment rate for graduate degree holders is 3.3 per cent.

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This report explores the challenges of low-income students who combine work and learning as compared to students from higher-income backgrounds. Students from higher-income families tend to benefit as they work fewer hours in jobs directly related to their fields of study. Low-income working college students often work longer hours, and as a result, are less likely than their higher-income peers to get good grades and attain bachelor's degrees or any credential at all. Key findings include: (1) of the 14 million working learners, about 6 million (43 per cent) are low-income students; (2) low-income working learners are disproportionately Black (18 per cent) and Latino (25 per cent), women (58 per cent), and first-generation college-goers (47 per cent), while higher-income working learners tend to be White (73 per cent); (3) low-income working learners are more likely to enroll in certificate programs and attend either two-year public or for-profit colleges than higher-income working learners, whereas higher-income working students are more likely to enroll in bachelor's degree programs and attend selective four-year colleges and universities; and (4) low-income working learners are less likely to earn a credential overall, even if they come from the upper end of the academic performance distribution.

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Education reform has shifted to focus on these key competencies, particularly as they pertain to life and career skills. The move towards making people both college and career ready essentially amounts to finding ways to learn basic knowledge, and transforming these capabilities into deeper learning in order to create a flexible and adaptable individual with the appropriate skills to survive in the twenty-first century. We are only at the very beginning of the dialogue and experimentation on exactly how we should teach these skills. What we do know, however, is that the learning curve is gentlest when these skills are introduced to students within a practical framework and appropriate context.

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The growing economic value of postsecondary and adult education is creating new tension among educators, government leaders and the business community. There are growing pressures for accountability measures to produce education cheaper, better and faster. Educators have cultural and political missions to ensure that they produce good citizens. As a result of the changing occupational structure of the economy, businesses now require workers who not only possess higher cognitive skills, but also a new set of problem-solving and interpersonal skills and positive cognitive styles. The challenge to educators is to produce well-rounded citizens who are also successful workers. In this article, the authors look at the growing demand for education, the complex skill requirements, the expected shortage of workers in the American economy and how the broad societal mission of educators and the narrower human resource needs of employers are converging to meet this need. Show less

Globalisation and technological advances in the latter part of the 20th century have changed the US economy and affected the structure of jobs and the way people work, fuelling increases in educational attainment and the demand for skill. Two main challenges are created for education reformers: to meet the need for a greater quantity and quality of human capital needed to foster overall growth in the knowledge-based economy; and to reduce the growing differences in family incomes by bridging the gap between the country’s ‘education-haves and education-have-nots’. A stronger focus on the ‘missing middle’ in education policy is needed to strengthen the relationship between education and work requirements. This ‘missing middle’ refers to the years when academic and applied learning overlap between the completion of basic academic preparation and the completion of occupational or professional learning. The focus of this paper is on educational reform for the ‘missing middle’.

This paper is one of a set of eight papers that was commissioned by OVAE to be presented at Preparing America's Future: the High School Symposium held in Washington in April, 2002. Following the Symposium, a further 10 papers were commissioned. Selected papers are indexed from TD/TNC 72.438 to TD/TNC 72.448. Show less

This study is on the skill requirements needed in a changing economy. These new labour needs are based on changes in the way goods and services are produced and in the composition of the consumers' final demand. By focusing on what people actually do instead of what industry they work for, the authors have developed a new functional category that combines all the activities of administration, coordination and promotion into a broad new category - the office. The body of this document defines and describes the new office economy. The conclusion considers the implications for society and educators.

This executive summary is part of a larger technical report by the same name. Show less