"Demand for the traditional bachelor’s degree is collapsing.
The share of parents who say they want their children to go to college has fallen to nearly half of what it was just ten years ago. And the bachelor’s degree has never looked less attractive to young people wary of a lifetime of student loan debt. Nonetheless, colleges scramble for their share of this year’s crop of graduating high school students, who number less than four million.
Meanwhile in the workforce there are many more potential learners. Over ten times more. Half of working adults without a bachelor’s degree – as many as 50 million people – say in survey after survey they still want more education. Yet too many traditional colleges ignore this giant, unserved market.
Others are answering the call," writes Reach University's President, Joe E. Ross, in Forbes.
A growing number of employers and institutions of higher education, such as Dallas College, Trident Technical College, and Reach University, are rapidly embracing the "apprenticeship degree" to create a new accredited degree pathway to benefit learners, employers, and address systemic labor shortages across industries. Pres. Ross explains how to structure an"apprenticeship degree" done right; the value of this model to individuals and employers; and how Reach aims achieve 3 million conferred apprenticeship degrees by 2035 through a soon to announce national initiative.
Read the full op-ed, published in Forbes' BrandVoice on behalf of Reach's partner, Stand Together, here.
Reach University's Dean, Kim Eckert, is featured along with Margo Rivet, School Counselor, in a West Baton Rouge Parish Classroom
