UV Letter Archive

Prelude to a Pricing Paradigm Shift Oct 4, 2019

Imagine if you will a bizarro United States – even more bizarre than the current one – where reduced federal and state funding of higher education has been exactly offset by the lower cost of delivering online or even blended programs.

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College Graduates Are “Between Two Ferns” Sep 20, 2019

Last week I was at a meeting with a well-known professor and expert on the future of work who shared his considered opinion that “most Human Resources managers make Stalinist-era Soviet bureaucrats look thoughtful and progressive.” Is it possible, I wondered, that Human Resources is the potted plant of the employer?

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When It Comes to Learning And Development, Don’t Judge Employers By What They Say, But Rather By What They Measure Sep 6, 2019

Any celebration of the Business Roundtable statement is like spiking the football on the 50 yard line. The fact that the Business Roundtable made this statement simply underscores that they are putting shareholders first, “because it makes shareholders feel better.”

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Hugh Grant U: What Colleges Can Learn from Four Weddings and a Funeral Aug 23, 2019

When it comes to getting a good first job, students aren’t meeting prospective employers at five ceremonies (four weddings and a funeral) across a number of years. For most students, there’s only one ceremony – graduation – and the timeframe for employment serendipity is extremely limited. The result is often less four weddings and a funeral than four years and a funeral of underemployment.

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The Death of the Great American Summer Job Aug 9, 2019

While adults in fast food jobs find themselves blocked from participation in the dynamic economy, they in turn are blocking teens from getting the summer jobs – the work experience and soft skills – that prior generations accessed as the very first rung of a career ladder. And without these summer jobs, teens are growing into underemployed 20-somethings. It’s America’s skills gap begetting a greater skills gap, and the skills gap becoming a vicious circle.

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The Best Bootcamp For Soft Skills May Be The Oldest Camp Jul 26, 2019

I’m often asked why there aren’t bootcamps for non-technical skills. One reason is that there is an original boot camp for soft skills called summer camp.

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Can Apprenticeships Keep Up With The Kardashians? Jul 12, 2019

The challenge with extending employer-run apprenticeships is that not everyone is Kim Kardashian. An apprenticeship requires a willing employer – exactly the sort of thing someone with 143.2M Instagram followers is positioned to arrange.

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Free College Jumps The Shark Jun 28, 2019

The Progressive impulse to incorporate debt forgiveness will prove to be the end of Free College’s happy days: the moment that Free College jumped the shark.

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Con Artist U Jun 21, 2019

The sad bloom of higher education liars and con artists that has attracted the attention of the American public, isn’t anomalous, but rather systemic – what happens when high pressure marketing and “yield management” practices meet deteriorating student outcomes and enrollment.

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Looking For Talent In All The Wrong Places Jun 7, 2019

American employers aren’t innocent bystanders to the dumpster fire that is elite college admissions. Many of the parents caught up in Operation Varsity Blues are employers themselves, and that their lying and cheating may by a byproduct of their own flawed hiring practices.

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