February 16, 2025

Kathleen deLaski

29 minutes

Kathleen deLaski discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Kathleen deLaski is an education and workforce designer, as well as a futurist. She founded the Education Design Lab in 2013 to help colleges begin the journey to reimagine higher education toward the future of work. Her non-profit has helped 1200 colleges, orgs and economic regions design shorter, more affordable pathways for learners to achieve their economic goals. She spends time as a senior advisor to the Project on Workforce at Harvard University and teaches human-centered design and higher ed reform as an adjunct professor in the Honors College at George Mason University. In a previous career, Kathleen spent twenty years as a TV and then a digital journalist, including time as ABC News White House correspondent. Followed by a political appointment as the first female Pentagon spokesperson. Her new book is Who Needs College Any More?, available at https://www.whoneedscollegeanymore.org/.

Only 38% of Americans have a 4 year college degree, yet American education and hiring system is really only set up to help this minority succeed.

The “College for all” movement of the last several decades is basically dead and that may not be a bad thing

White people, generally, are best positioned to skip the college degree.

A lot of the focus and debate is on elite colleges, which is odd, because they provide 2% of the college “seats” in America

We are in a period of the great skills shakeup in history, which has upended hiring and will continue to do so.

AI is both “the race track” for fixing or democratizing the hiring system, but also could be the nemesis for entry level workers.

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