Education

EDU News Curated by Kiosk: Growth of apprenticeships and Other Higher Ed News

Apprenticeships Are Gaining in Popularity

From Kiosk: Historically, trade schools and colleges/universities have often operated in parallel but separate tracks. Trade schools focused on providing hands-on, practical training for specific careers, such as plumbing, electrical work, and welding. In contrast, colleges and universities offered broader academic education aimed at developing critical thinking and specialized knowledge in fields like business, law, medicine, and the arts.

View the full article from Kiosk.

 

Survey Says: Apprenticeships Kickstart Careers

From American Staffing: “The survey found that general views and opinions on apprenticeships are overwhelmingly positive. … The vast majority of U.S. adults with an opinion about apprenticeships view them favorably (92%). Another four out of five Americans think that more people should consider apprenticeships, and seven in ten wish they knew more about these vocational opportunities. Only recently have apprenticeships resurfaced in the media, and these survey results indicate an appetite for a better understanding.”
View the full article from American Staffing.

 

Will ‘Apprenticeship Degrees’ Come to America?

From Inside Higher Education: “Among high school seniors, a privileged few get to pick between elite, world-renowned colleges … What if they could pick Goldman Sachs? Some now can. Dozens of famous employers—including investment bank Goldman Sachs and other luminaries like Deloitte, GE, IBM, JPMorgan, Nestlé, UBS and Rolls-Royce—have begun to offer a four-year paid “apprenticeship” that leads to a debt-free bachelor’s degree. What’s the catch? Well, to apply for the Goldman Sachs gig and others like it, you need to be in the United Kingdom. Here in the United States, the apprenticeship-to-degree model is only beginning to emerge. If the idea takes off, it could be a long-term solution to the $1.7 trillion student debt crisis and restore lagging faith in American higher education.”

View the full article from Inside Higher Education.

 

 

Police Apprenticeships for Youth Can Enhance Recruitment and the Quality of Officers While Lowering Costs

From Urban Institute: “This policy brief examines the potential for the apprenticeship model to attract a wide group of applicants, to enhance the quantity and quality of training, to improve selection into the full-time force and to do so without increasing department costs. … we describe the police youth apprenticeship model, highlighting several of its key advantages. We then describe how the police department of Fairfax County, Virginia, implements the youth apprentice model to its advantage in recruitment, retention, and quality, and plausibly reduces costs in doing so. We conclude by arguing that police work is a natural fit for on-the-job learning and identify areas for further research into police apprenticeship.”
View the full article from Urban Institute. 

 

Will the FAFSA Fiasco Kill Off Some Colleges?

From Inside Higher Education: “Jon Boeckenstedt, vice provost for enrollment management at Oregon State University, said he feared the problem ‘could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for some schools,’ adding that ‘it’s not a revelation that small, poorly endowed, tuition-dependent colleges with small regional draws in areas that are saturated with private colleges and declining high school graduates will be most vulnerable.’ Many institutions will not know the full impact until the last two weeks of August or early September when they take their fall enrollment census. By then, it could be too late to take the necessary financial precautions to avoid financial disaster.”
View the full article from Inside Higher Education.

 

 

Pew: Almost half of adults say the importance of a college degree has declined

From Higher Ed Dive: “Only a quarter of adults said having a four-year degree is a ‘very or extremely’ important part of getting a well-paid job, according to new polling from the Pew Research Center. Another 35% said a degree is somewhat important. But 40% of those surveyed rated it as ‘not too or not at all’ important. Respondents also indicated a decline in the perceived value of college, with 49% saying that a four-year degree is less important to get a well-paying job now than it was two decades ago. About a third, 32%, said it is now more important.”

View the full article from Higher Ed Dive.

 

 

Two-thirds of US universities fall in QS world rankings

From University World News: “The United States still hosts many of the world’s top universities, but two-thirds of ranked US institutions have dropped places, indicating a ‘noticeable trend’ in the decline of their global standing, according to QS’s analysis of the QS World University Rankings 2025 released on 4 June. … Ben Sowter, QS senior vice-president, said: ‘If one were to tell a story of the last two decades of global higher education, it would be of the US managing to remain pre-eminent – more of the world’s very best universities, more universities capable of being included in a global ranking than any other nation… This year offers the starkest signal yet that there is no guarantee whatsoever that the US’ privileged position can withstand this ambition indefinitely.’”
View the full article from University World News.

 

 

Yet Again, the Number of College Dropouts Stays Persistently High

From The Chronicle: “While undergraduate enrollment is inching toward pre-pandemic levels, colleges are still struggling to re-engage the millions of Americans who dropped out of college without finishing their degrees. The number of working-age adults with some college experience but no credential — students who have stopped out, as they’re known — increased 2.9 percent from July 2021 to July 2022, reaching a total of 36.8 million, according to a report released on Thursday by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. That represents roughly one in five Americans who held at least a high-school diploma, a representative of the center said. In a bright spot for higher ed, though, more former students returned to college during that time span.”
View the full article from The Chronicle.

 

Stress, Cost of Higher Ed Remain Greatest Threats to Student Persistence

From Inside Higher Education: “Three national surveys published in the past month identify student anxiety as the greatest challenge in their educational pursuits, and the greatest threat to their retention. Around one third of students enrolled in a postsecondary program have considered stopping their coursework in the past six months, according to an April 17 report from Gallup and the Lumina Foundation. The primary concern among students is emotional stress (54 percent), followed by personal mental health reasons (43 percent) and cost of higher education (31 percent).”
View the full article from Inside Higher Education.

 

Latest AI Announcements Mean Another Big Adjustment for Educators

From EdSurge: “Tech giants Google, Microsoft and OpenAI have unintentionally assigned educators around the world major homework for the summer: Adjusting their assignments and teaching methods to adapt to a fresh batch of AI features… One of the most significant changes was OpenAI’s announcement that it would make its latest generation of chatbot, which it dubbed GPT-4o, free to anyone. Previously, only an older version of the tool, GPT-3.5, was free, and people had to pay at least $20 a month to get access to the state-of-the-art model. The new model can also accept not just text, but spoken voice inputs and visual inputs, so that users can do things like share a still photo or image of their screen with the chatbot to get feedback.”

View the full article from EdSurge.

 

Credit for prior learning is showing value. Should your college care?

From University Business: “Credit for prior learning, commonly known as CPL, is gaining traction… However, several factors could hinder its progress without immediate attention, declares a new report from the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO). … First off, CPL still lacks widespread popularity. More than half of surveyed faculty were made aware of CPL by word of mouth (54%) or students requesting this form of credit (52%). Additionally, first-generation college students and individuals from low socioeconomic backgrounds—those who can most benefit—are the least likely to take advantage due to a lack of awareness.”
View the full article from University Business.

 

What would happen if a UK university went bankrupt?

From Times Higher Education: “Funding pressures are leading to vast numbers of redundancies and fuelling dire warnings that some institutions are close to the edge… There are ‘three actors that are most likely to force the cessation of a university’, says Bob Rabone, a former University of Sheffield finance director …Those are the Office for Students, a bank lender or HM Revenue and Customs (over unpaid taxes) – ‘probably in that order’. In the event of a ‘lengthy period of financial distress’ at a university, Rabone continues, the OfS ‘may have a mandate to intervene because of the impact on students … albeit not necessarily directly triggering an insolvency process, but [introducing mechanisms] which could quickly stop a university’s activities.’”

View the full article from Times Higher Education.