Careers And Education Need To Go Hand In Hand —Or We Can Expect A Dropout Crisis For Working Adults

Here’s a scenario we’ve seen: A would-be adult-learner hops on the phone with a counselor or career coach. Maybe they’ve worked in a frontline role for a number of years — perhaps in retail or restaurants. They’re interested in something new — cybersecurity.

The would-be learner has an employer-backed program that allows them to study cyber, so the conversation could stop there.

But the counselor keeps asking questions, and the potential student makes it clear they’re interested in cyber because they heard it is a quick path to a six figure income. It’s immediately apparent that salary is the main thing this potential learner knows about the field. They don’t have a real sense of whether the job is a good fit for their interests, values, and skills.

This isn’t unusual. More than 80 percent of working adults, primarily in frontline roles, that Guild Education surveys say they are returning to education to advance in their careers. Yet, half of those students aren’t clear on how education will actually help them.* They need tailored career navigation and guidance. I serve as a Senior Vice President at Guild, and we commissioned this research in part to better understand the “why” of adult learners.

One important takeaway: most of the education industry focuses on career support as a last-mile service. In order to drive success, though, it needs to be a primary focus of the first mile.

For most students entering higher education, the conversation stops at that initial question of “What do you want to study?” Nobody probes, nobody counsels. And that’s one big reason why 39 million Americans went to college but have no credential to show for it.

That’s especially true for working adults. Students who are working and attending college at the same time take breaks for a lot of reasons: time or money gets too tight, childcare is unreliable, a car breaks down, someone in the family gets ill. But those who leave college altogether—with no intention of coming back—are much more likely to do so because the program they were in wasn’t the right fit for their career goals.

• Research conducted by Guild Education with paused and dropped out learners** found that 40 percent of those who self-reported dropping out said their program was a misfit—six times higher than the misfit rate among those who just paused their education.
• And experiencing program misfit can damage confidence longer-term. These learners often worry about their ability to succeed if they try again.
• In other words, while work and personal responsibilities may delay program completion, fit plays an outsized role in whether an adult learner persists through those challenges because they have a clear end goal in mind.

Fortunately, there’s a lot we can do to make sure people find programs that are a better fit for their careers. It starts with basic counseling that happens before a student ever enrolls—conversations about interests, values, and skills that go beyond just asking someone what they want to study.

That counseling needs to begin as soon as a learner expresses interest in additional education, while they still have a lot of flexibility to choose a direction. For many students, including the vast majority of adults, those conversations are going to center on career goals. Again, 4 in 5 adults say that their career is driving their return to education.

They want help figuring out their path—they tell us that—and they want it as soon as possible. Investments in front-end counseling, like Southern New Hampshire University’s intensive in-take process, or creative new programs at Lorain County Community College, can pay huge dividends for both students and the institutions themselves.

It’s much easier to retain a student than it is to get them in the door in the first place. And students who stay are, logically, the ones who earn credentials.

Of course, not just any credential will do. Adults are looking for degrees, certificates, and certifications that have value for the career and earnings prospects. As those kind of post-graduate outcomes become a heightened focus for both students and policymakers, counseling to ensure students find the right program for their life and career—before they even enroll—is critical.

This avoids both wasted money and wasted time. For working adults time is often their most precious resource, so even if an employer is fully paying for their education, front-loading counseling is essential to ensure the program is worth it.

Along with investments in counseling, higher education needs to better to help students navigate data on job availability and pay. State Longitudinal Data Systems, which pair education and workforce data, and proprietary analyses by third-party companies are starting to give us a clearer picture of the demand for particular jobs in regions across the country, the immediate and longer-term wages they pay, and the education and training that’s needed to land them.

But we need more initiatives, like Data for the American Dream, that aim to get those data into the hands of worker-learners, K12 and postsecondary counselors, and other trusted advisors. Guidance about education and career must be built on an understanding of local supply and demand.

To help people reach their goals, we’ve got to ask more questions about their interests, values, and skills. And we’ve got to share better information and data about the actual jobs available where those people work and live. Otherwise, lots of them will keep choosing programs because they read a catchy headline about cyber or nursing. And they’ll keep dropping out.