Higher Education: What Comes After?
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The document explores the evolving landscape of higher education and the uncertain career paths for graduates in today's economy. It discusses non-traditional pathways and challenges faced by millennials, including the impact of globalization and technological changes on the labor market. The piece emphasizes the need for adaptive strategies, such as coding boot camps and freelance work, in light of dwindling traditional job opportunities.
Higher Education: What Comes After?
- 1. “Higher Education: What Comes After?” By: John F. C. Cheong, Ph.D. Feedback and comments to: johnc@spacemachine.net.Rev.2016.0420 A road map of the non-traditional pathways university graduates follow to fulfill their dreams; and what this means for tomorrow’s higher education industry in the context of the greater economy.
- 2. “Higher Education: What Comes After?” By: John F. C. Cheong, Ph.D. 1. “Those Jobs Aren’t Coming Back.” 2. A Road Map for Finding Work Upon Graduation 3. Non-Traditional Pathways for Graduates 4. When (and How) Did the Future Get So Bleak? 5. Up Close & Personal: The Millennial Graduates 6. New Challenges Facing New Graduates (< 6 Yrs) 7. “The Labor Market Ain’t What It Used to Be.” 8. What Does a Labor Market Do Exactly? 9. Implications for New Graduates & Future Careers 10. Higher Education: The Pipeline of Future Labor 11. A New Role for Higher Education? 12. Q&A? Ask Me Anything! Thank You! Feedback and comments to: johnc@spacemachine.net.
- 3. Visual Bio of My Silicon Valley Adventures 1 2 3 4 What comes next?
- 4. “What would it take to make iPhones in the United States?” asked President Obama. Why can’t that work come home? “It isn’t just that workers are cheaper abroad. Rather, Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that “Made in the U.S.A.” is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.” Those jobs aren’t coming back.
- 5. A Road Map for Finding Work Upon Graduation: “ABZ Planning” for Identifying Career Pathways A B Z “Traditional” “Non-Traditional” “Dream On…”“Start Here” “Ready-Set-Go!”
- 6. So, What Comes After Higher Education? B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 Attend a School for Startups Join a Startup (Any Startup!) Become a Freelancer Can’t Code? Drive for Uber (or Lyft!) Graduate School (Always a 2nd Chance in Life!) None of the AboveZ
- 7. Attending A School for Startups? “For its Spring 2015 batch YC received more than 6,700 applications and accepted around 1.6% of them. In contrast, Harvard’s admissions process this year was the most competitive in its history, yet its admissions rate was 5.3%.” B1
- 8. Joining a Startup in Silicon Valley? (Pssst…, Can You Code? Teach Me, Quickly!) B2 Meet Katy , a 22-year- old graduate from Dartmouth College with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and studio art that cost more than $250,000. “Coding boot camps didn’t exist four years ago. Now 80 of them pull in $59 million a year, mostly from college grads. A 12-week boot camp at Hack Reactor in San Francisco costs $17,780; that’s $1,482 a week, about the same as a week’s worth of tuition at Harvard.” Katy was looking for a full-time job in graphic design but wound up working a contract gig for a Boston clothing store. She’s paying $11,500 for a three-month crash course in coding, sitting in a basement 5 days a week (9am to 5:30pm).
- 9. Forming a Team to Tackle “Swarm Work”? “InnoCentive operates a contest format to crowd-source solutions to important business, social, policy, scientific, and technical challenges, using a network of 365,000 problem solvers all over the world. Since 2001, InnoCentive has posted 2,000+ challenges, reviewed 59,000+ solutions, and handed out 2,400+ cash awards (from $5,000 to $1 million) totaling $48 million.” B3
- 10. Throwing Your Hat into the Ring of Design Contests?B3 Hmm… could this be the reason that permanent Graphic Designer jobs are disappearing?
- 11. Driving for Uber or Lyft (or Both)? “Ride-hailing service Uber has sounded out car companies about placing a large order for self-driving cars. It was reported that Uber had placed an order for at least 100,000 Mercedes S-Class cars. Daimler and Uber declined to comment.” B4 Hmm… maybe this is not such a great career option…
- 12. OK, What Comes After Higher Education? B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 Attend a School for Startups Join a Startup (Any Startup!) Become a Freelancer Still Can’t Code? Drive for Uber (or Lyft!) More Graduate School (Always a 3rd Chance in Life!) None of the AboveZ I want a Model 3… Me too…
- 13. But There’re Still Plenty of “Ubers for X”!
- 14. Alright, So Be a Foot Soldier in the Gig Economy!B4
- 15. Now, What Comes After Higher Education? B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 Attend a School for Startups Join a Startup (Any Startup!) Become a Freelancer Work for an “Uber for X” Graduate School Again (But I’ve Already Got a Ph.D.!) Apply for “Basic Income” from Y CombinatorZ I still want a Model 3…
- 16. Post-Graduate School? Then Try, Try, Try Again?B5 Preparing PhD’s as data scientists or quants: Training data scientists through internships: Excellent LTV (Life-Time Value of Customer)… Why didn’t I think of that!?
- 17. Teaming Up for Data Science Competitions?B3B5
- 18. Apply for “Basic Income” from Y Combinator?Z “What Do People Do All Day?” “Do people sit around and play video games, or do they create new things? Are people happy and fulfilled? Do people, without the fear of not being able to eat, accomplish far more and benefit society far more? And do recipients, on the whole, create more economic value than they receive?” — Sam Altman (“Basic Income”, Y Combinator) Q “A lot of our social services were based on the notion that there are a lot of 40 hour-per-week jobs out there, full-time jobs, and it was just a matter of connecting people to those jobs and everything will be fine. Of course, one of the things we know is that’s certainly not the case, particularly for young people who often find themselves working in precarious jobs, working in contracts for long periods of time without the benefits and long-term support that those of us who have been around longer take for granted.” — Evelyn Forget (Professor, University of Manitoba)
- 19. None of the Above? When (and how) did the future get so bleak? “It’s hard enough being a college graduate with a stacked resume and decent people skills and still being unable to land even a mediocre receptionist job; I don’t need legions of older adults judging me for working three part-time entry-level jobs to support myself in order to follow a passion of liberal arts. We all know that the job market blows right now, especially for those of us looking for “real” jobs. But hey, in the meantime, the world will always need another server, barista, or nanny. Keep hanging in there, millennials.” — Alex But those “real” jobs aren’t coming back, hon! And it’s not just in manufacturing… Q Z
- 20. Up Close & Personal: The Millennial Graduates (What Do You Find Most Interesting…?) A Model 3 next year for sure… But what to do about this student loan?
- 21. New Challenges Facing New Graduates (< 6 Yrs): Source: 15 Economic Facts About Millennials. Council of Economic Advisers, 2014.
- 22. “The Labor Market Ain’t What It Used to Be.” Get People into Jobs Boost Skills Narrow the Wage Gap Reduce Income Equality Almost every social and economic policy debate is centered on improving the labor market, for which higher education has been contributing a steady and growing supply of talent. 2016 Republican Candidates 2016 Democratic Candidates
- 23. What Does a Labor Market Do Exactly? (Hint: More Than Just “Getting People into Jobs”) 1 2 3 Allocating labor to capital in the interests of economic production; Boosting well-being through structured, socially endorsed activities; and Distributing national income through wages. Recently, no longer adequate for sharing the proceeds of wealth; share of income going to labor rather than capital has been falling steadily. E.g., “gamified work”:
- 24. What This Means for the New Graduates: But those jobs aren’t coming back! Q: Could something like this also be happening to non-manufacturing service sectors such as R&D, data science, or graphic design? What’s the impact of “Ubers of X” on the service sectors? What about all those “free work” going into game play? Looks like service jobs are vanishing fast, too! “Creative Destruction”
- 25. What This Means for Graduates’ Future Careers: Began after the Dotcom wave… 3 leading hypotheses to explain the decline of labor share: (i) Capital Deepening; (ii) Skill-Biased Technological Change; and (iii) Globalization. There’s no definite answer yet, but… Sweat equity is entrepreneurial labor; but realized as “capital gains” via acqui-hire, M&A or IPO.
- 26. “Just one word. Unicorns.”
- 27. How Previous Generations “Graduated” to the Top 1% (Share of Total U.S. Income or Wages, 1910-2012): Source: 1. Piketty’s Inequality Story in Six Charts. The New Yorker. March 26, 2014. 2. Striking it Richer: The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States. September 3, 2013. Gilded Age “Rentiers” (Dividends + Interests) Rise of the “Working Rich” “Fat Bonus” on Wall Street (Rise of Hedge Funds) “Nifty Fifty” (50 large-cap NYSE growth stocks) “Carried Interests?” Extended to 2012 (Age of Unicorns) It’s all in my data.
- 28. Higher Education: The Pipeline of Future Labor Source: 15 Economic Facts About Millennials. Council of Economic Advisers, 2014. This is your “work-in-progress” product (aka “pipeline” of current customers)
- 29. A New Role for Higher Education?
- 30. “College Anyone?” Working Backwards While Looking Ahead: A B Z “Traditional” “Non-Traditional Pathways” “Live the Dream!” Startup Boot Camp Coding School Finishing School “New Role for Higher Ed?”
- 31. What Type of Institution Are You Today? (What About Tomorrow?) A B Come along, let me show you how the big boys do it… Our job here is done. Can’t wait to see our babies hatch... Meat is back on the menu! “Traditional” “Non-Traditional”
- 32. Q&A? Go Ahead, Ask Me Anything! I knew it! This guy knows nothing about the future. For More Info, Check Out This Recent Blog Post: "A Short History of Work”. “The future isn’t what it used to be.” — Paul Valéry (French Poet, 1937)
- 33. Thanks for Listening to “What Comes After”! Feedback and comments to: johnc@spacemachine.net. How high does this have to go? He must be new… Totally clueless about higher education.
- 34. Wait! But What About the Future for the Rest of Us “Non-Tech Types” with a “Passion for Liberal Arts”?
- 35. Epilogue: Project XX (X) Collective Intelligence: Run economic games to understand the design of incentives and how people might behave coopetitively, e.g., in a complex healthcare system. Connection to real-world applications is secret to success, e.g.: Everyone Wins: (i) Undergraduate students play economic games to earn money; (ii) Graduate students run the games, observe outcome and analyze results; (iii) Doctoral students design new game experiments and write up reports; and (iv) Professors look for sponsorships and publish research. “Buy A Feature” design game. Design of HP’s reseller network.
- 36. Epilogue: Project YY (Y) Prediction Markets: Design experiments to forecast future events by aggregating diffuse information sources from people interacting via market mechanisms. E.g., PredictIt.org: Everyone Wins Here, Too!