Much higher education coverage related to COVID-19 focused on 18-year-old students being displaced from their dorms and listening to history lectures or watching biology videos in their childhood bedrooms. Relatively little attention was paid to the pandemic’s impact on career and technical education, much of which involves hands-on learning.

In this week’s episode of The Key, Shayne Spaulding, a senior fellow in the income and benefits policy center at the Urban Institute, discusses research the think tank released this spring about how the pandemic may have changed the role of online and blended learning in community college career and technical programs. The conversation also explores the role of alternative providers in the CTE space and whether vocational learning is undervalued in American society.

This episode is hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman. 

Sponsored by ECMC Foundation.