After spending a year inside admissions offices, journalist and author Jeff Selingo reminds parents and students that admission into college is not just about grades and hard work, and it never was. We talk to Selingo about his latest book, “Who Gets In and Why,” to explore how colleges can improve admissions and increase opportunities for disadvantaged students and how students can maximize their college experience — wherever they go to school.

How can we better equip learners with the skills they need for today's jobs? What roles should educators, employers, and policymakers play in transforming education after high school? And how do we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic with new insights about what's working and what's not? In Lessons Earned, Strada Education Network's Ben Wildavsky and co-host Aimée Eubanks Davis of Braven sit down with bold thinkers who are challenging the status quo and exploring ideas to help all Americans navigate between learning and earning. 

While many employers are laying people off during the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon is expanding. The online retailer is hiring more people and helping employees upskill so they can advance either within or outside the company. Amazon’s Ardine Williams talks about how employer-based education programs fit into America’s postsecondary landscape.

After edtech firm Guild acquired his startup incubator Entangled, Paul Freedman and Guild CEO Rachel Carlson set out to help workers use employer benefits to upskill and, with luck, shield themselves from the next recession. Neither could have predicted the economic downturn would come amidst a global pandemic that has robbed tens of millions of Americans of their jobs in a few short months. We talk to Freedman about the role technology can play in helping those workers get the education and training they need to recover.

Western Governors University began as a bold experiment to create a completely online university—a place where learning is self-paced and the institution’s value is measured not by the profiles of its incoming freshmen, but the career success of its graduates. As the COVID-19 pandemic forces colleges and universities across the country into a virtual learning environment, we talk to Scott Pulsipher, president of the nation’s largest online competency-based university.

Long before COVID-19, America’s most vulnerable students were struggling to access not only education and skills training, but the social connections that open doors to great careers. Aimée Eubanks Davis, founder and CEO of Braven, says the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on low-income and minority communities has also laid bare inequities in the education-workforce ecosystem. It’s time, she says, to level the playing field so all college graduates can secure strong first jobs that lead to long-term career success.

Rhode Island has made great progress in improving the lives and livelihoods of its residents by combining classroom education with hands-on, work-based learning. But what happens when businesses are shuttered and students must learn at a distance? Meghan Hughes, president of the Community College of Rhode Island, says the COVID-19 pandemic is actually a great opportunity for her school and its students to demonstrate how they can adapt in trying times.