WEBVTT - How Postsecondary Education Can Evolve to Meet the Needs of Next-Generation Learners 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:09.280 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. This is Bloomberg Business 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:13.480 Week with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:16.159 Hey Nora, Sometimes I think about how much college is 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:18.720 going to cost my kids when they're old enough. I 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:20.320 think about this when I want to be depressed. 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:21.759 Okay, understandable. 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:23.920 Okay, So four hundred thousand dollars a year. That's how 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:26.720 much a private college is estimated to cost my daughter, well, 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:29.480 in state tuition it fees at a public school would 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:31.720 cost about one hundred and seventy two thousand dollars. These 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:35.240 are just estimates from NEFA dot org. It's a calculator online, 0:00:35.280 --> 0:00:39.160 the Massachusetts Educational Financial Authority, And I did that. What's 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:41.479 an estimate, but you know, hopefully, hopefully that's not what 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:43.800 it is number, But it does raise the question will 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:47.120 college be necessary in fifteen years? Is it necessary right now? 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:49.199 I mean, look how much the workforce has shifted in 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:51.640 just the last few years. We've got with us at 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:55.480 Kathleen d'laski. She's the founder of the Education Design Lab. 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:58.640 It's a nonprofit organization that, in its own words, works 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:02.000 with colleges, states, and employee to design shorter, more targeted 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:04.440 forms of higher education. She's also the author of Who 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:08.160 Needs College Anymore, imagining a future where degrees won't matter. 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:10.760 She joins us from McLean, Virginia. Kathleen, good to have 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:13.800 you with us. Who does need college right now? 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:17.319 Well, I still tell any eighteen year old, I'm not 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:19.280 sure about how old your children are. 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:22.320 Two and six, two and six, So maybe the robots 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:25.560 will rule by the time there and there, we may have. 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:28.160 The new system wired. But yeah, for your children to 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:30.960 see that they have other options, because that's the problem, 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:34.399 even for eighteen year olds right now, is that is 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:37.560 that they really see still a kind of college or 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:41.720 bust narrative going on in the country. We have we 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:44.920 say college is too expensive, it's it's maybe not worth it, 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:47.680 and so we have a lot of people. You know, 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:53.680 enrollment is down in the degree form and it's to 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:57.640 drop pretty quite a lot since twenty ten. It's starting 0:01:57.680 --> 0:01:59.400 to it's starting to shift up a little bit. But 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:03.840 what's interesting is the way that enrollment is improving right 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:09.000 now is because of short term certificates and other forms 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:12.920 of enrollment that colleges are starting to offer. You know, 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:16.440 they're competing with like the boot camps and apprenticeships that 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:20.200 are that are having trouble getting to scale, and colleges 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:23.320 themselves are starting to offer alternatives, and so I wrote 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:27.239 I wrote the book really to kind of raise the 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:32.000 argument that we need more, we need a better fund, 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:37.040 and remove the stigmas from alternatives to college, because only 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:41.280 thirty eight percent of Americans have a four year degree, 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:43.600 and yet we tell all of our kids, you know, 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:47.639 that they have to either go into debt or figure 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:50.400 out how to get that four year degree. And as 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:53.120 you said at the beginning, that's starting to change. It 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:55.600 hasn't changed yet, So I still, you know, I think 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:57.320 you have to give a lot of caveats when you're 0:02:57.360 --> 0:02:57.960 giving advice. 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:02.240 Today you speak a bit more to those alternatives in 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:04.880 terms of we think about a traditional four year university 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:06.800 or maybe a two year community college. Can you just 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:09.200 dive a bit deeper into what those alternatives could look 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:10.639 like and what that could mean like for the could 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:11.400 mean for the future. 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:15.760 Absolutely, And I describe in the book that probably the 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:20.320 two most successful alternatives right now, I mean, if you're 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:24.880 looking to go for a professional pathway career would be 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:30.040 apprenticeships and industry certifications and the problem, the problem with 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:34.040 these two you know, wonderful alternatives to a four year 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:38.440 degree is that they are not not evenly available, Like 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:40.600 you can find them in some cities and states and 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:44.680 some professions, but not not widely. But they are being 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:49.000 looked to as as as sort of the models that 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:50.960 we need to create, that we need to create more 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:53.720 of and either colleges can develop and offer them or 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:57.520 you know, independent organizations. A lot of entrepreneurs have been 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:00.440 you know, looking in these spaces too, But we have 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:03.680 to we have to get off this idea that that 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:08.080 that it's only that the government should only fund the 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:10.600 degree programs for people who were going, you know, at 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:13.600 least half time into a degree program. That's how the 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:16.400 funding follows. You. Now, if you want to do one 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:18.839 of these other kind of programs, you know, you're usually 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:20.800 not funded. And that has got to change. 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:23.200 How disruptive do you think AI is going to be 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:24.520 to the workforce? 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:26.479 That's a great that's a great, that's a great question. 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:31.039 There's already reports coming out that AI is starting to 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:35.080 impinge on and UH and and and shrink the number 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:39.640 of entry level white collar jobs. Right because expertise UH 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:42.599 that that you can you know, use chat GBT or 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:47.280 other other other options to to try to get answers 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:50.080 to questions that may not be within your realm of expertise, 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:54.359 those that it tends to wipe out a an entry 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:57.480 level white collar job, you know, that doesn't that doesn't 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:02.239 require a physical interaction. And so we're we're already seeing 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:05.279 some of that new reports are coming out. Uh but 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:09.360 where where I think on the flip side, for a 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:12.640 college student or a learner or a job up again, 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:15.920 there's also they're also able to use AI to to 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:19.200 uh find out about more jobs, to help them write 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:23.839 their resume, to potentially uh learn learn the bits of 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:26.400 expertise that they need to even you know, sound good 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:29.200 in their job interview. So, you know, it's a there's 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:31.839 a there's a positive and negative side to AI from 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:35.080 the standpoint of of of the future of work. But 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:37.880 you know, probably the nature of jobs and the speed 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:41.240 at which they'll change will continue to accelerate. 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:46.120 As we're thinking about AI. Just more broadly, we have 0:05:46.160 --> 0:05:47.680 a lot of students who are sitting here, you know, 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:50.200 everyone's looking at chat GPT. But it's also a really 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:53.680 good tool for teachers and people in the education field. 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:57.839 To utilize AI to better uh, you know, educate the youth. 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:01.480 What has been your take on AI and just what 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:04.640 the implications can be from a teaching perspective. 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:08.000 Yeah, I teach at the college level at George Mason 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:11.120 University here in Virginia, and I you know, I've tried 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:13.480 to It's interesting. We haven't been given a lot of 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:16.680 you know, policies about how we're supposed to, uh, you know, 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:19.159 whether whether we're supposed to allow students to use it 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:21.680 to write their papers, for example, and so a lot 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:22.960 of us are just kind of you know, we're just 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.720 kind of forging into our own territory and deciding how 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:28.520 to use it. And I've I have been treating it 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:31.960 as my friend right to say, to have students use 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:36.599 it to basically like pressure test the ideas that we 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:39.240 might come up with the in the classroom. I teach 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:42.200 design thinking, and so I have the students use it 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:44.359 to pressure test the ideas that we do live in 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:47.080 the classroom. And then they're supposed to you know, go 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:49.200 and and see, well, you know what, what is what 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:51.560 does the rest of the landscape say about this about 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:54.800 this point? That's one example. But it does mean that 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:57.159 we can't really assign papers in the way that we 0:06:57.279 --> 0:06:59.440 used to. You know, we have to figure out how 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:02.720 to project tie things that are that that create unique 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:07.200 responses from the students or require unique responses from the students. 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:11.040 And that's been that's been really difficult, but kind of exhilarating. 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:12.160 Really Yeah. 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:16.400 I mean, I just I might be old or a 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:20.200 lud Eite or I don't know. I don't know. I 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:25.600 just I worry about what this does to critical thinking. 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:28.880 I mean, I remember when I was in college and 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:30.760 I would be working on a paper and I would 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:34.120 have some sort of breakthrough with the thesis, and it 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:36.160 would have required me to sort of go through all 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:38.320 the notes and really come to a conclusion and distill 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:41.560 an argument. And I don't and and I learned so 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:45.080 much by doing that, And it required me exercising a 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:48.120 part of my brain that I don't know would need 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:52.680 to be exercised if I had chat GPT, right. 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:54.240 I mean, it's the same. I mean, I'm old enough 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:56.360 to remember when the calculator came out and we were 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:59.000 worried about, you know that doing the math problem and 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:01.400 if you're not doing your like, do you learn do 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:03.560 you learn enough? And I think the you know, the 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:06.840 argument now is okay, the calculator like, yes, we don't 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:10.400 have to no long division anymore, but you still, you know, 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:12.320 so you have to use math in different you know, 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:15.480 you have to learn it in different ways or learn 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:18.440 the applied version of it. So what I try and 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:22.160 do in my classroom is force those aha moments that 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:24.840 you had writing your paper. I forced them in a 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:28.320 live setting, in a you know where we're where, we're 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:31.760 creatively problem solving together, and that that does help. I mean, 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:33.800 it doesn't work for a history paper, but it works 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:37.040 if you take the history lesson and try to apply 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:39.520 it to a real world situation that you have your 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:42.800 students work on together. Because they want, you know this today, 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:45.880 they want they want school or college to be an 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:50.120 engaging experience, not a you know, not if it's something 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:53.280 they can read and learn or even write a paper about. 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:55.040 They they want to be able to get that at 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:57.800 the you know, drop of a hat. So learning has 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:01.679 to become a whole lot more of an engagement practice 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:06.400 experience for students to even care or stay engaged. That's 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:08.640 what I'm seeing in my classroom and many of my 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:09.319 colleagues too. 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:12.960 I really want to just keep an eye on. There's 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:17.800 been this conversation about AI picking up plagiarism in about 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:21.360 thirty seconds or less. I'm curious what is your standpoint 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:23.640 as a teacher as to how to actually figure out 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:26.520 if students are plagiarizing using AI. But there's also been 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:33.400 some situations where AI falsely detects plagiarism from students. 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:34.000 Falsely to text. I have heard a little bit, a 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:37.120 little bit about that there are apps that that you know, 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:40.440 usually most colleges and schools are you are you know 0:09:40.480 --> 0:09:43.079 where you can you know, run you run the kids 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:46.920 papers through theirs and through these these applications. Yes, I 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:49.600 mean I think that's happening maybe a little bit. But 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:52.679 you know, there are ways to check up on or 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:55.600 have your student. I mean you can usually tell without 0:09:55.640 --> 0:10:00.520 the without the apps, whether whether the students came up 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:04.160 with the argument right not necessarily supporting facts. I mean, 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:07.440 I don't I don't hear my colleagues having much trouble 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:11.440 in that regard. But but yeah, I mean, can you 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:14.640 can go back to the student and use prompts, you know, 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:18.160 live prompts, right, he prompts to figure that out. 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:20.320 Kathleen, we got to get you back. We got to 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:22.400 go everywhere with you at the end of our program, 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:24.640 and we do really appreciate it. Kathleen's Alaski. She's the 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:26.920 founder of the Education Design Lab. She's a teacher. She's 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:29.520 also the author of Who Needs College Anymore, imagining a 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:31.040 future where degrees won't matter.