Episode 44: The Urgent Need for a New Higher Ed System with Keil Dumsch, Writer, Editor, and Education Reformer

College is more expensive than ever, and consequently students are faced with an impossible decision: Do I risk going into debt that I may not be able to pay back, or do I skip college altogether to avoid the debt, but miss out on the benefits of a college degree?

Online content writer, editor and passionate citizen education reformer Keil Dumsch has some keen insights into this dilemma, and some ideas to solve our higher ed problems. Kiran found Keil on Clubhouse and they connected over a series of posts Keil created on LinkedIn about transforming education, the need for education to evolve, and the need for education to be disrupted so that it can be completely transformed.

New year, same problems

Keil sees a system that is very badly broken, with Covid bringing the deep structural issues (particularly with the higher ed value proposition and degree system) into stark relief. He doesn't come from an education background, but he felt compelled to jump off the sidelines as a concerned citizen back in 2009, because he believed the situation with student debt had reached a critical mass. There was (and still is) a combination of fecklessness, muddled thinking, and overall inability by college leaders, the media, and government to identify and solve the massive problems in higher ed. No one is doing due diligence to spur the immediate reform that we need. A whopping 12 years has passed since Keil entered higher ed reform and we still have the same problems.

Keil feels that the media is not serving in its traditional role as a consumer watchdog, and instead operates as little more than the public relations arm of higher education. Higher education on its own has also not been operating in good faith to reform itself. A lot of the problems with higher ed aren't necessarily its own fault, as they're situational rather than intentional, like degree attainment being dictated by the hiring mandates of employers. That said, colleges themselves bear a lot of the blame for both a flawed learning model and the astronomical costs of degrees that often lead to ruinous debt. 

Student debt is destroying human lives. It's a massive drag on the economy and our society in factors like delayed retirement savings and family formation. The student loan debt total is at $1.7 trillion and counting, and it could potentially trigger an overall economic meltdown. People have committed suicide because of student debt, women are forced to go into prostitution to pay off their debt, and Keil saw a story not too long ago about a woman who was forced to sell her eggs to pay off her debt. There seems to be no end to the irrational and often tragic measures people have taken just to service student debt, and these are the types of stories that made Keil feel compelled to jump into the world of higher ed reform.

Breaking the bank

The most glaring issue with higher education is its high cost. When one thinks about all the positive experiences and learning environments found in college, Keil feels that many of them can and should be done outside of the higher education environment. A lot of what people learn in college can be done on the job, in a library, or in their own day-to-day lives. 

At its inception several centuries ago, college was generally intended as a place for serious scholarship and research. Now we send people to college for four or more years in an attempt to obtain all of their job skills. This creates a host of issues, chiefly the cost, plus the opportunity cost of keeping students four straight years out of a job world where they'd be gaining valuable work experience and earning money. Because college attendance is a prerequisite for hiring and advancement, the cost and economic model of higher education doesn't follow a rational pricing process. 

What we have is a higher education business model that's based on irrational consumer demand, where people are spending money they don't really have. They're seeking brand, status, and the "college experience” (sports and parties), and all this is coupled with a post-WWII official government policy that encourages most students to attend college and earn degrees. We are sending everyone and anyone off to college in an unthinking way, and it's become an ingrained cultural expectation that you go to college.

It could be debated that financial education on the costs of higher ed is lacking, although it's hard to imagine that financial education alone would solve the problems of our current education system. Keil points out that even if one is aware of all the various costs and options as a rational consumer, given how crazy our system is, you still may feel compelled to go to an elite college. Why? Because the elite colleges have more sway in the hiring process with the power of their brands in their degrees and their alumni networks. To be clear, there are plenty of different colleges you can attend and end up successful and happy in life. In the current system, however, it definitely helps to go to certain colleges.

Micro-credentialing

While there are current multiple learning and credentialing pathways into the workforce, the white collar professional career most commonly runs through one pathway: a fou-year degree at a brick-and-mortar college. In addition, the artificial exclusivity and scarcity of elite colleges exerts an enormous influence on much of the admissions process and cost structure of higher ed. 

In the wake of Covid, however, we're starting to see a broad recognition that the system of job credentialing and hiring (with their emphasis on college degrees) doesn't make sense. We need a system that is more skills-based in hiring, with more transparency. Unfortunately, adoption of skills-based hiring and alternatives to degrees by employers has been slow and gradual, when we need rapid, across-the-board acceptance. One problem is that the alternative credentialing landscape as currently exists is a bit of a “Wild West.” By some counts, there are hundreds or thousands of different alternative credentials, certificates, badges, etc.,and their validity and quality aren't clearly defined. But the longer we maintain a system where a college degree is a requirement for white-collar employment, the more the problems with higher ed costs, admissions madness, and flawed and un-meritocratic hiring will continue.

Of course, some complex jobs will still require credentials that entail use of specialized college facilities and instruction and extensive seat time. It does not, however, justify the current flawed and unjust system of credentialing that govern certain professional fields. These lengthy school requirements are a legal cartel arrangement meant to make it difficult, time-consuming, and expensive to enter specific professions. In the current system of medical credentialing, a student is obligated to complete a full K-12 education and full bachelor’s degree, is well into his or her twenties without starting any medical training, then is obligated to attend a specialized medical school. Many students need to take on a massive debt load to attend medical school. What we need is for job training to start in K-12, for people to start at the bottom of the profession and learn on the job, and to attend various schools and colleges in a judicious and as-needed lifelong way. Degrees need to be replaced with lifelong micro-credentialing. With lifelong micro-credentialing, you're identifying skill sets, abilities, and areas where improvement is needed, but doing it across a lifetime rather than memorizing and cramming it all into a four-year degree.

Keil points out that there is a direct conflict between making college genuinely affordable and colleges maintaining profitability at their current levels. This is why we need to convey a sense of urgency about higher ed reform. We can't settle for slow progress, because the debt crisis is out of control, the hiring system doesn't make any sense, and a lot of schools are facing closure or contraction. Keil believes higher ed reform right up there with climate change as an issue for our society.

Higher education is ripe for disruption. Parents, students, and institutions are all beginning to recognize this. Even before Covid, it was apparent that higher education needs to look at what can be done to provide online learning opportunities, so that interested students can get a more affordable education and pursue success in their chosen fields. Right now, students are forced to pursue degrees (and often attend elite colleges) that are required of them by hiring dictates, when there should be a hiring system in place that does not require degrees or discriminate at all by where a job applicant. Another big part of complete education reform is overhauling the K-12 system, a late 19th-century creation with a scattered and mostly aimless academic curriculum that does little but serve as a “warm-up act” for college.

What we need is an education system where we are working with employers to make sure that people are getting the necessary schooling across their lives. For the general education component of education, we need to put our heads together to figure out how we can ensure that people are getting a lifelong general education, with most of it occurring outside of college.

Connect with Keil Dumsch on Linkedin:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/keil-dumsch-6341042/

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