Stakeholders:
Legislators
College administrators
Prospective college students
Families of prospective college students
Employers
Background:
Strategic foresight involves the systematic exploration of possible futures to inform decision-making in the present. In the context of higher education, it means understanding the potential scenarios that may unfold in the next decade and beyond, allowing institutions to proactively adapt and prepare students for the future workforce.
The Challenge:
Fewer and fewer Americans believe in the idea of college. Given how tuitions have ballooned, this might not feel entirely surprising. What experts find alarming is how quickly and dramatically this change has come.
Less than a decade ago, 98 percent of parents said that they expected their kids to go to college. Today, about half of American parents say they don’t want their kids to go to a four-year university. A college education used to guarantee greater wealth over the course of a lifetime than a high school education. Now, that might not be the case. Tuitions are so high that there’s now a decent chance you’ll accrue more wealth jumping right into the workforce after high school than you would with a degree in arts, humanities, or social sciences.
The professional landscape is rapidly transforming, with technological advancements, automation, and globalization reshaping industries. As we witness these shifts, signals of change emerge, such as the rise of remote work, increased demand for interdisciplinary skills, and the growing importance of lifelong learning. FutureEd 2035 will harness these signals to anticipate the future needs of the workforce and tailor higher education accordingly.
My Impact:
I worked with a partner to develop this project proposal for a Strategic Foresight study to higher education institutions, gathering signals to hone in on the problem space and identify the project phases to gather the insight needed to execute.
Key Skills:
Signal collection
Horizon scanning
STEEP analysis
Forces of change analysis (drivers)
Scenario development
2x2 planning matrix
Backcasting
