Hello and welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today
we are tackling a subject that I think a lot
of us interact with, maybe even rely on, but
we rarely stop to actually look at the machinery
behind it. We're talking about continuing education.
It's a massive topic. And you're right, it's
often invisible. We tend to think of education
as this linear path. Yeah, straight line. Exactly.
You go to primary school, maybe high school,
university, and then you're done. You get a diploma,
you throw the cap in the air and you enter the
real world. And that's it. Chapter closed. But
continuing education is the system that acknowledges
that you are never actually done. The learning
just keeps going. Exactly. It's that hidden engine
of society. And when I first looked at the stack
of sources for this deep dive, I admit I had
a very, very specific image in my head. Oh, yeah.
What was it? I was picturing, you know, a night
class and pottery, maybe something fun and low
stakes. Or on the other end of the spectrum,
a mandatory seminar in a hotel conference room
with like really stale coffee. Which are definitely
parts of it, for sure. But it is so much more
vast than that. Right. And what we're going to
find out today is that this isn't just a side
hobby for retirees. It's this huge bridge between
formal schooling and, well, the rest of our lives.
That's the perfect way to phrase it. A bridge.
So the mission today is to unpack all of it.
We're going to get into the history, which I
have to say goes back way further than I expected.
Oh, much further. We're talking the 1800s here.
And then we're going to look at the mechanics,
like how is this stuff actually measured? And
of course, the economics behind it. And that.
economic piece is really critical. There is a
real tension in this field, and it's a theme
that runs through all the source material. It's
the tension between learning for the sake of
learning, you know, personal enrichment, and
learning to survive in the economy. Ah, the adapt
or die model of professional development. In
a way, yes. A bit stark, but true. It acts as
a safety valve for the labor market. When technology
shifts or the economy changes, continuing education
is how the workforce is supposed to catch up.
OK, so before we fire up the time machine and
go back to the 1800s, I think we need to make
sure we're all speaking the same language because
we're calling it continuing education. And that's
the term we use here in North America. But if
you're listening to this in London or Sydney,
you might be scratching your head. That's a great
point to start on. The terminology really does
shift depending on where you are on the map.
In the United States and Canada, continuing education
is the big umbrella term. It implies you have
finished the. compulsory part the initial schooling
and now you are continuing pretty straightforward
but our sources point out that the UK and Ireland
treat this quite differently they use the term
further education they do and it's not just a
semantic difference it's a structural one it's
really important to get your head around this
in the UK further education or FE is a whole
distinct sector okay so what does that mean a
sector it means it sits between secondary school
what we'd call high school And what they call
higher education, which is your university degree.
So it's like a middle ground. A huge middle ground.
FE in the UK covers a massive range of things.
A -levels, which are subject -based qualifications
for university entry, but also vocational training,
apprenticeships, basic adult literacy and numeracy.
It's a much, much wider net. So further implies
more than the basics, whereas higher is reserved
for like... The ivory tower. The university.
Precisely. It's a more delineated system. And
then you go to Australia and they get even more
specific. They call it TAAE. TAAFE. Right. Technical
and Further Education. They put technical right
in the name. They do. And that's a signal. It
tells you immediately that this isn't just about
reading philosophy. It's about skills. It's about
the vocational aspect of keeping a society running.
Plumbing, IT, nursing, hospitality, the technical
stuff. I have to say, I kind of like that specificity.
In the U .S., continuing education can feel a
bit vague. It could be brain surgery updates
for a neurosurgeon, or it could be a class on
how to use Microsoft Excel for the first time.
And that vagueness comes from the fact that the
menu of options here is just enormous. It's not
one thing. And I think that's where people get
tripped up. It's not a single path. It's a hundred
different paths under one banner. All right.
So let's look at that menu. What is actually
on the plate when we say continuing education
in the American context? Well, the sources break
it down into a few really clear recognized forms.
First, and this is a big one, you have degree
credit courses for non -traditional students.
Non -traditional. That's the key phrase. It is.
This is the 40 -year -old single parent going
back to finish the bachelor's degree they started
when they were 20. It's someone who didn't follow
that straight line we talked about. Got it. Then
the next item on the menu. Non -degree career
training. This is purely skills -based. Think
coding boot camps, project management certificates,
fair legal programs. The goal isn't a diploma
to hang on the wall. It's a specific skill to
get a specific job or promotion. And then there's
workforce training, which is usually corporate,
right? This is when a company is the client.
Exactly. Your company hires a university or private
training firm to come in and train the whole
department on a new software system or a new
set of regulations. Okay, that makes sense. But
then there's one category here that I think deserves
a moment of reflection. The sources call it college
remediation. Yeah. Remediation. It sounds a bit
medical, like you're curing a defect. It does
have that connotation, but it's actually about
access and equity. This is for adults who want
to enter higher education but realize, maybe
decades after they left high school, that they
don't have the foundational math or writing skills
to succeed in a college -level program yet. That
feels like such a heavy realization to have,
to have the ambition and the drive to go back
to school only to be told, you're not ready.
You have to go back and learn algebra first.
It requires immense humility and a lot of courage.
I mean, think about it. But it's a critical function
of the continuing education system. If the system
didn't offer remediation, if it just said sink
or swim, those doors to higher education would
be closed forever for so many people. So it's
that safety valve concept again. It's not just
for the economy. It's for individual opportunity.
It allows for a second chance. A third chance,
a fourth chance, whatever it takes. And finally,
on the lighter side of the menu, we have formal
personal enrichment. And we are back to your
pottery class. We're back to pottery or, you
know, learning Italian because you've always
dreamed of going to Rome. Exactly. Both on campus
and increasingly online. This is learning for
the pure joy of it. It's not about a job or a
license. It's about being a more interesting,
more engaged human being. OK, so we have the
definition down. We know it's this massive umbrella
covering everything from remediation to personal
hobbies. But here is where I want to dig into
what our outline calls the identity crisis of
this whole sector. Yes. Because reading through
the research, I get the sense that continuing
education is, well, it's like the stepchild of
the university system. It's part of the family,
but it kind of sleeps in the guest house out
back. That is. A painfully accurate metaphor.
It really is. And we often describe the structure
that creates this feeling as the extension model.
Right. You hear it all the time. University extension.
Harvard Extension School. The word extension
literally means reaching out. But in practice,
it often means separate. Okay. It refers to how
these courses are delivered. Frequently, especially
here in the U .S. and Canada, these programs
are siloed. They are delivered through a specific
division. known as the university extension or
the extension school. It acts as an arm of the
university reaching out to the community. So
far, so good. But it is often operationally distinct.
It has different staff, different buildings,
sometimes even different pay scales and funding
models. It's not part of the core academic structure.
It feels a bit like a side hustle for the university.
Like, hey, we've got this great brand name, this
great reputation. Let's spin off a product for
the adults in the community who can't enroll
full time. You're not wrong. In some ways, it
functions exactly like that. And this very structure
has actually drawn some pretty sharp critique
from major international bodies. You're talking
about the OECD. I am. The Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development. For anyone who doesn't
know, it's a major international organization
that studies and advises on economic policy.
And they had some strong words about this silo
model. So what's their beef of it? Well, the
OECD has argued that continuing education should
be, and I'm quoting from the source here, fully
integrated into institutional life. Fully integrated,
so not shunted off to a separate building across
town. Exactly. They argue that treating it as
a separate and distinctive operation employing
different staff is a fundamental mistake. Why?
What's the harm in it being separate? Their view
is that if you integrate it, it creates a two
-way street. The insights from continuing ed
can feed back into the mainstream programs. It
also gives continuing education the due recognition
deserved. So it's about status. It's about status,
prestige, and mission. It validates it as a core
part of what the university is, not just a cash
-generating side project. It says that teaching
a 50 -year -old is just as important as teaching
an 18 -year -old. But I want to play devil's
advocate here for a second. Please do. Doesn't
the silo model, the extension school, allow for
more flexibility? I mean, if you're trying to
run a night school for working adults, do you
really want to be bogged down by the same academic
Senate bureaucracy that runs the Ph .D. program
in medieval history? That is the number one counterargument.
And it's a powerful one. Separation allows for
agility. Extension schools can often design and
launch a new certificate program in a matter
of weeks to respond to a local industry need.
Whereas a traditional university department might
take two years to get a new course approved by
16 different committees. So there is a real tradeoff.
So it's agility versus prestige. In a nutshell,
yes. But the OECD's point is about the long -term
health and centrality of the mission. If you
keep it separate, it's always less than. It's
always seen as vocational, not truly academic.
If you integrate it, you're making a statement
that learning is a lifelong process, not just
something for 18 to 22 -year -olds. It's a fascinating
tension. And despite that critique from a body
like the OECD, American universities seem to
love having these programs. I mean, the sources
mention massive programs at Georgetown, Michigan
State, the University of Denver. They are doubling
down on this extension model, not getting rid
of it. They absolutely are. And there's a clear
symbiosis there. It's not a one -way street.
It benefits the university in three very specific
ways, according to the source material. Okay.
Let's break those down. What's benefit number
one? First, it strengthens partnerships. By offering
these courses, particularly the professional
and workforce training, universities connect
directly with corporations and government agencies
in their region. Right. So if Boeing needs its
aerospace engineers to learn a new composite
material, they call the University of Washington
Extension. Exactly. And that creates a relationship.
That relationship might lead to a multimillion
-dollar research grant down the road or a new
pipeline for internships for the full -time undergraduate
students. It builds bridges to the real world
of industry. Okay, that makes a lot of sense.
What's the second benefit? The second is a feedback
loop. These programs help inform and shape the
curriculum for the main degree programs. How
does that work? Well, if you're teaching a class
full of mid -career professionals in marketing,
You learn very, very quickly what skills are
actually in demand in the field right now. They'll
tell you. Oh, I see. So the professional student
says, nobody uses that theory anymore. Everyone
is focused on this new analytic software. Precisely.
And that real world, up to the minute information.
can then be fed back to the professors teaching
the 20 -year -olds in the traditional business
school, making their degrees more relevant and
valuable when they graduate. It keeps the academic
world from getting too stale. That's a really
smart symbiotic relationship. The real world
tells the academic world what's actually happening.
And the third reason, well, we can't ignore the
bottom line. Follow the money. You have to. These
programs generate revenue. A lot of revenue.
And that revenue helps to support the broader
academic enterprise. So wait, are you saying
the night classes and project management are
effectively subsidizing the philosophy department?
In many, many cases, yes. That's exactly what's
happening. The profitable professional certificates
in high -demand fields help keep the lights on
for the pure research and the humanities departments
that might not make money immediately or ever.
It's an ecosystem. So we have this deep, deep
tension between being a cash cow and having a
civic mission. And that tension defines the entire
field. And frankly, I assume this tension was
new. I really did. I thought this whole continuing
education thing was like. A post -World War II
invention, something that came about with the
GI Bill or the rise of the corporate ladder in
the 1950s. A very common misconception. But looking
at the history segment of our source stack, I
was completely and totally wrong. This goes way,
way back. It really does. It's a surprisingly
deep history. If we look across the pond to the
UK, for instance, we're talking about the 1870s.
The 1870s, that is wild. We're talking about
the Victorian era, gas lamps, horse -drawn carriages.
Absolutely. The Institute of Continuing Education.
at Cambridge University dates back to 1873. Think
about that. And Oxford University's Department
for Continuing Education was founded shortly
after in 1878. So while the Victorians were,
I don't know, building the London Underground
and debating the Corn Laws, they were also figuring
out how to teach adults who weren't full -time
wealthy students. What was the drive back then?
Why then? It was a time of massive industrial
and social change. The world was speeding up
in a way it never had before. There was this
growing realization that the old model where
you learned to trade from your father and you
did it until you died, that model wasn't going
to hold anymore. People needed new skills. And
the university saw it as their duty to provide
them. Some people at the university did. It was
a reformist movement, really. But the American
origin story is arguably even more colorful and
a bit more grassroots. It starts with Sunday
school. Okay, the Chautauqua Institution. I've
heard the name, but I honestly didn't know the
story. So this was founded in 1874, which you'll
notice is right around the same time as the UK
examples. It was originally called the Chautauqua
Lake Sunday School Assembly. All right, set the
scene for me. It's 1874. We're in upstate New
York. It's summer. It's a retreat, a beautiful
spot by a lake. And originally, it was an educational
experiment for Sunday school teachers. The idea
was to give them a place to come during their
summer vacation to learn and become... better
more effective teachers so it was purely religious
training at first at the very very beginning
but look at the pivot the source says it was
so successful that it broadened almost immediately
broadened into what this is the fascinating part
into everything it exploded academic subjects
music art physical education it transformed from
a niche religious training retreat into a massive
cultural phenomenon for adult learning you have
to picture it Thousands of ordinary people gathering
by a lake in the summer, not just to pray, but
to listen to lectures on science, to hear concerts,
to discuss literature. It sounds like the 19th
century version of a TED conference mixed with
a summer music festival. That's a fantastic analogy.
It really is. It proved on a huge scale that
adults were hungry for intellectual engagement
outside of the formal university walls. They
wanted to learn, even on their vacation. And
while all that was happening in the woods of
upstate New York, the Ivy League was getting
involved, too, but in a much more Boston kind
of way. A very Boston way. We have to talk about
Harvard because their timeline, according to
the sources, starts even earlier. 1835. 1835.
I mean, Andrew Jackson is president of the United
States. The Battle of the Alamo hasn't even happened
yet. It's a different world. It really is. And
in Boston, a man named John Lowell Jr. establishes
the Lowell Institute. His mission was very specific
and very radical for the time. Free public lectures
for the citizens of Boston. Free public lectures.
That's a deeply democratic idea for 1835, which
is a pretty elitist class stratified time. It
was radical. And for decades, that's what it
was. A very popular. public lecture series. But
then we fast forward to 1909. A president of
Harvard at the time happens to be a man named
A. Lawrence Lowell. Any relation to John Lowell
Jr.? He was a trustee of the Lowell Institute,
so there's a direct family and institutional
lineage there. And he decided to expand on the
original plans. He wanted to offer these Lowell
Institute public courses with Harvard. to give
them the university's seal of approval. To formalize
their relationship. Exactly. So in 1910, they
formally established what was then called the
Commission on Extension Courses. Which eventually
becomes the Harvard Extension School we know
today. That's the one. And what's climb to understand
is that it is one of the 13 degree granting schools
of Harvard University. This isn't some side project.
It's been in continuous operation since 1910.
It's a century old institution woven into the
fabric of Harvard. But my absolute favorite historical
nugget in this entire stack of research, and
I really want to dwell on this because the imagery
is just so fantastic, is the Cornell story. Oh,
this one is great. We've talked about Sunday
schools and lecture halls, but Cornell apparently
took a field trip approach to continuing education.
This is a wonderful detail that really brings
the era to life. So Cornell University began
offering university -based continuing education
in the 1870s, and they were primarily targeting
teachers, trying to upskill them. But the source
we have cites a specific issue of the Cornell
-era newspaper. Yeah, I love that we have a date.
From February 16, 1877. Amazing. What did it
say? It noted a new program being offered, a
tour of the Great Lakes. A tour? Like a vacation
cruise? An educational tour. A scientific expedition
for the public. It was led by Professor Theodore
B. Comstock, who was the head of Cornell's geology
department. And it was designed for, quote, teachers
and others. Teachers and others. I love that
phrasing. It's so wonderfully inclusive and yet
so vague. But just stop and think about the logistics
of that for a moment. It's 1877. There's no Internet,
no cell phones. Commercial tourism is barely
a thing. You are signing up to get on a boat,
probably a smoky, loud steamship. with a geology
professor to sail around the Great Lakes for
weeks. It sounds like an incredible adventure.
It was. And it shows that continuing education
wasn't just about sitting in a dusty classroom.
It was about experiential learning. It was about
the democratization of science. Professor Comstock
wasn't just teaching the sons of wealthy industrialists
back on campus at Cornell. He was taking teachers
and others out into the field to look at rock
formations and understand the world around them.
It completely changes the way I look at the whole
field. It's not just about dry professional development.
The root of it is about curiosity. It's about
people wanting to understand the planet they
live on. Exactly. And this momentum just keeps
building into the early 20th century. We saw
the University of Wisconsin -Madison start their
program in 1907. This is often associated with
the famous Wisconsin idea. What's the Wisconsin
idea? It's the principle that the university
should influence and improve people's lives beyond
the physical boundaries of the campus. The borders
of the campus are the borders of the state. Continuing
education was the living embodiment of that idea.
And then, of course, we have the New School.
The New School for Social Research, founded in
New York City in 1919. This one is unique because
initially it was devoted entirely to adult education.
It wasn't an add -on or an extension. It was
the whole point of the institution. And the date
there, 1919, that feels... incredibly significant.
It's hugely significant. Think about the context.
World War I has just ended. The Spanish flu pandemic
has just ravaged the globe. Old empires have
collapsed. The world is in turmoil. People are
confused. They are traumatized. And they are
desperately looking for answers. So the New School
wasn't just about learning for fun. No. It was
founded as a place for free inquiry, for adults
to come together and try to understand the complex
social and political problems of this frightening
new world order. So it was deeply civic. The
mission wasn't just get a better job. It was
how do we understand this world so we can stop
it from blowing up again? Precisely. And that
deep civic mission is really the foundation of
the best parts of the modern system we have today.
So we have this rich, fascinating history leading
us up to the mid 20th century. But then as we
move into the 1960s and 70s, the sources show
things start to shift again. There's a new development.
the rise of the specialized adult learner institution.
We do. The timeline in our research jumps to
1969 with the founding of Empire State College.
Which is part of the SUNY system, right? The
State University of New York. Correct. And its
significance really cannot be overstated. According
to our sources, it was the first institution
in the United States to exclusively focus on
providing higher education to adult learners.
That is a huge deal. Because before that, if
you were an adult going back to school, you were
always the odd one out. You were the 35 -year
-old sitting in a lecture hall full of 19 -year
-olds who live in dorms and go to football games.
You were a non -traditional student navigating
a very traditional space. Empire State changed
the whole architecture. The entire school, from
its scheduling to its advising, was built for
you, the adult learner. And other universities
started to follow suit in their own ways. The
University of Florida created its Division of
Continuing Education in 1976, and the source
notes a very practical adaptation they made.
A simple but revolutionary one. Most courses
were offered on evenings or on weekends. Which
seems so obvious to us now, but back then...
That was a major structural recognition that
these students have jobs, they have families,
they have lives. It was an accommodation of the
working student's schedule, not forcing the student
to accommodate the university's nine to five
schedule. And of course, this evolution in scheduling
leads us directly to the evolution of delivery
methods, because eventually even evenings and
weekends wasn't flexible enough for everyone.
Right. This is the tech progression. And it's
a fascinating evolution of really the user experience
of learning. Yeah. It started with the traditional
classroom lecture in labs, face -to -face. Yeah,
classic model. Then came independent study or
correspondence courses. You would literally get
a packet of materials in the mail, you'd do your
homework, and you'd mail it back to the professor.
The snail mail era of education. You'd wait weeks
to get a grade back. Weeks, yeah. Then, as technology
improved in the 70s and 80s, we got videotape
material. Oh, man, the VCR era. I have such a
vivid mental image of someone coming home from
a long day at work, popping a VHS tape into the
player, and watching a grainy hour -long lecture
on accounting while eating their dinner. It wasn't
glamorous, but it was effective. And it was a
huge leap forward because it decoupled learning
from a specific time. You could pause the professor.
You could rewind if you missed something. That
was a game changer. Then after VHS tapes, what
was next? Then came broadcast programming. Things
like the sunrise semester on television. You
could tune in at 6 a .m. and watch a university
course on PBS. And that has all led, inevitably,
to where we are now. Online education, which
currently dominates the entire distance learning
landscape. It's just amazing to trace that straight
line from a steamship tour of the Great Lakes
in 1877 to someone logging into a Zoom class
today from their laptop. The technology is completely
different. But the fundamental human impulse
is exactly the same. People need to learn things
they didn't learn in school, and they need a
way to do it that fits into their complicated
adult lives. That's it. The need hasn't changed
one bit. Okay, so that's the history. We've gone
from the sublime, that Great Lakes tour, to the,
well, let's call it the administrative side of
things. The nuts and bolts. Exactly. I want to
get into the nuts and bolts because for a lot
of people listening to this, continuing education
isn't just a fun history trip or a personal choice.
It is a requirement. It is something they absolutely
have to do to keep their jobs. This is The Four
Professionals. aspect of the outline. And it's
a huge, huge part of the industry. We are talking
about professional licensure. Right. If you're
a teacher or a nurse or an engineer or a therapist,
you can't just get your degree at 22 and then
coast for 40 years on that knowledge. Absolutely
not. Licensing bodies in almost every professional
field teaching, health care, psychology, accounting,
engineering, they impose strict continuing education
requirements. And what's the stated goal of that?
The goal is to encourage or really force professionals
to expand their foundations of knowledge and
stay up to date. Medicine changes, tax laws change,
building codes change, new teaching pedagogies
emerge. You have to keep up for public safety
and for professional competence. But let's be
honest, from the perspective of the person doing
it, it often feels like a chore. It feels like
a box checking exercise to keep the state off
your back. It certainly can feel that way. And
this is where we get into the alphabet soup of
acronyms that drives professionals crazy. The
CEUs, the CEs, the CMEs. I always get these confused.
What is the actual difference? Yeah, let's break
this down for a minute, because if you get the
math wrong on this, you might literally lose
your license to practice your profession. It's
high stakes. And the problem is it depends entirely
on your profession. There is no universal standard.
The most widely accepted standard, though, comes
from an organization called the International
Association for Continuing Education and Training,
or IACET. And they developed the CEU. The CEU,
yes. The Continuing Education Unit. Okay, so
if I'm a professional and my board requires CEUs,
what is the exchange rate on that? How much work
is one unit? The standard IACET math is this.
Ten contact hours equals one CEU. Wait, walk
me through that. So if I go to a professional
conference for a whole day, let's say I sit through
eight hours of lectures and workshops. You haven't
even earned one full unit yet. After a full day
of work, you have earned 0 .8 CEUs. Wow. That
feels a little discouraging, to be honest. It's
an attempt to standardize effort. It's a very
industrial era measurement. Yeah. And here's
where all the confusion comes in. Not everyone
uses that convention. Of course not. That would
be too simple. Of course not. So take the American
Psychological Association, the APA. They are
a major accrediting body for sponsors of continuing
education for therapists, but they use a CE credit
approach. A credit, not a unit. And I'm guessing
their math is different. Their math is completely
different. Typically for them, one contact hour
equals one CE credit. Oh, wow. Okay, that is
a massive difference. So if I tell you I need
to earn 10 CEs this year, that can mean I need
to do 10 hours of work if I'm a psychologist
under the APA system. Or it could mean I need
to do 100 hours of work if I'm an engineer under
the IAC system. Precisely. The distinction between
a unit and a credit is absolutely vital, and
it varies from profession to profession, state
to state. I can just imagine the sheer panic
of a professional realizing on December 15th
that they have 10 units due by the end of the
year, thinking it's just 10 hours of webinars
and then finding out. It's actually 100 hours
of work they need to cram in before New Year's
Eve. It happens all the time. And it really highlights
the bureaucracy of the system. At the end of
the day, we're trying to measure learning with
a stopwatch. It's a deeply imperfect proxy. Does
sitting in a chair for 10 hours guarantee that
you learned anything? Not at all. You could be
asleep. You could be asleep. But it's the only
easily quantifiable metric we have to ensure
that people are at least, you know, showing up
and being exposed to new information. It's the
button seat. metric of learning. Crudely put,
but yeah, pretty accurate. So we've covered what
it is, where it came from and how it's measured.
Now, I want to circle back to the why again,
but this time from a macro perspective. We talked
about universities making money. We talked about
professionals keeping their licenses. But what
about the students, the people themselves? What
drives the demand for this education, especially
when times get tough? This is where we have to
look at the intersection of psychology and economics.
And there is a fascinating and I have to say
a somewhat tragic paradox here that really came
into sharp focus during the Great Recession.
And this is from the study by Eddie Ventures,
right? The one from spring 2009? Yes. Eddie Ventures
is a higher education consulting firm, and they
released this study right in the... absolute
thick of the economic downturn. I mean, I want
you to remember what 2009 felt like. Oh, I remember
it vividly. Lehman Brothers had just collapsed.
The stock market was in a complete freefall.
People were watching their 401ks just evaporate.
Layoffs were happening everywhere. The fear was
palpable. And it's in that environment of extreme
economic anxiety that Eddie Ventures went out
and surveyed 1 ,500 adults who said they were
planning to enroll in some kind of course within
the next two years. OK, so they're talking to
people who want to learn. What did they find?
They found a deep and painful conflict. On the
one hand, nearly half of the respondents believed
that the value of education had actually risen
because of the recession. That makes perfect
intuitive sense. The economy is terrible. Jobs
are scarce. So having more skills, a better degree,
it makes you safer. Education becomes a life
raft in a storm. Exactly. The perceived value
went way up. If I just get the certificate, maybe
I won't get fired. Or if I can finish my degree,
maybe I can find a new job in a different field.
However, and this is the core of the paradox,
over two thirds of those same people said the
state of the economy had negatively affected
their plans to actually pursue that education.
So let me get this straight. I know more than
ever that I need this to survive. But because
I am in survival mode, I cannot afford to get
the thing I need. Precisely. The crushing tension
between needing skills to survive an economic
downturn, but lacking the money or the job security
to actually pay for them during that very same
downturn. That is a brutal catch -22. It's a
market failure, really. Think about the person
filling out that survey in 2009. They're probably
sitting at their kitchen table at night looking
at a stack of bills they can't pay, knowing that
a $2 ,000 course in medical billing could solve
their problems in the long run. But they just
don't have that $2 ,000 today. It's this tragedy
of lost potential scaled across millions of people.
I mean, how many people didn't retool in 2009
because they just couldn't afford it? And where
are they now, a decade later? That is the unanswered
question. And looking forward, this problem isn't
going away. If anything, the sources suggest
it's getting more urgent. I'm looking here in
the notes on the World Bank report from 2019.
The World Development Report, which was focused
on the future of work. Right. And their argument
is very, very strong. They state that flexible
learning opportunities are, quote, vital. Vital.
That's a powerful word, especially coming from
a cautious institution like the World Bank. It
is. They aren't mincing words. They argue that
labor markets are in a state of massive flux
and need to adjust. The nature of work itself
is changing because of automation, AI, the gig
economy. The job you have today might not exist
in 10 years. So workers, they say, need to retrain
and retool. Retool. I like that word. It implies
you already have the machine. The worker is capable,
smart, and experienced. You just need to swap
out some of the parts to make it work for the
new job. That's a great way to put it. It's not
about starting over from scratch as if you know
nothing. It's about adaptation. Okay, but if
we combine the World Bank's warning from 2019
with the Ada Ventures finding from 2009, we have
a really scary scenario taking shape. Lay it
out. The World Bank says you must retool to survive
the coming wave of automation. And the Ada Ventures
study says when the economic crisis caused by
that automation hits, you won't be able to afford
to retool. Exactly. We have a system where we
are telling people they are individually responsible
for their own lifelong learning and adaptation,
but we have no mechanism to help them do it when
they are most vulnerable. If we rely on a system
where the individual has to front the full cost
of their own retooling right at the moment when
their income is most unstable, we are setting
up millions of people for failure. It suggests
that continuing education isn't just a personal
choice or a consumer good. It's a piece of critical
economic infrastructure like roads or the power
grid. That's the argument. And if that safety
valve we talked about is stuck shut because it's
too expensive to open, the pressure in the system
just builds and builds and builds. And eventually...
The system breaks. Well, that is a sobering thought
to land on. But I think it frames the whole conversation
we've had today perfectly. We started this deep
dive thinking about, you know, pottery classes
and board nurses checking boxes for their license.
And we ended up talking about the fundamental
resilience of the 21st century workforce and
the stability of the economy. It really is the
hidden engine. I mean, just think about the journey
we just went on, all based on these sources.
We started with Sunday school teachers in 1874,
sitting by a lake, trying to become better teachers
during their summer vacation. We went on a geology
boat tour of the Great Lakes in 1877 with teachers
and others. We saw these ancient August institutions
like Harvard and Oxford formalize it and create
these extension schools. We saw the identity
crisis, the debate over whether it should be
a separate side hustle or integrated. into the
core mission of the university. We saw the shift
to adults only colleges like Empire State in
1969, a place built from the ground up for working
students. And now we're looking at a world where
online distance learning is the default and the
World Bank is basically shouting from the rooftops.
retool or get left behind it's all part of the
same continuum it's a 150 year old story and
continuing education is the bridge it connects
the academic world the world of theory and degrees
with the working world the world of day -to -day
application and frankly career survival And adaptation.
If there's one single word to sum this all up,
it's adaptation. Whether it's that healthcare
worker in 2024 getting their CEUs to learn a
new procedure, or that Chautauqua teacher in
1874 adapting to new ideas about education. And
that ability to adapt is what will determine
success for individuals and for entire economies
going forward. So to wrap this up, here's the
provocative final thought I want to leave you,
the listener, with today. We know from the data
that education becomes more valuable when the
economy tanks. We know that's when people feel
the need to learn the most. But we also know
that is exactly when we as individuals stop pursuing
it because of the cost. So if the World Bank
is right and continuous retooling is the future
of work, if this isn't a luxury anymore but a
basic necessity for survival in an automated
world, how do we solve that fundamental problem
of access? When the economy inevitably dips again,
how do we make sure people can actually afford
the life raft they so desperately need? It's
a huge question. And it's a question that policymakers,
universities and maybe even employers are going
to have to grapple with very seriously because
the need is not going away. The pace of change
is only getting faster. A lot to think about
next time you see a brochure for a night class,
or you get that email reminding you about your
professional credits, or even if you're just
thinking about learning something new for the
fun of it. Remember, you're part of a long, noble
history that goes back to the 19th century. You
are standing on the deck of that steamship with
a geology professor. trying to make sense of
the world. And you're fueling the engine of the
future workforce. Thanks for joining us on this
deep dive. It's been a pleasure. Keep learning.
We'll see you next time.