It seems that what COVID 19 won’t eliminate in terms of higher education, Google will. The recent announcement that Google will offer certificate training in technology jobs is not surprising. What is scary about the recent announcement is that Google will accept certificate training – basically those “badges” on Linked In – as the equivalent of a four year college degree.
Google isn’t to be blamed for anything, they are following along the ineptitude of our college and university administration. For years the discourse from university administrators has been “college matters because you can get a career and make money from it.” That has literally been the only thing that administrators have leaned on to defend the university. Who can blame Google if they take a look at this justification, take it as an honest argument, and then respond with, “we can do it cheaper and better.”
As other companies like Microsoft and Facebook, as well as some of the halfway-in companies like EdX start to follow Google’s lead, university enrollment in the things that keep revenue coming in will diminish. Most students are at the university because they want to work a corporate job. The university has taken the position of unquestioningly facilitating this, assuming that an 18 year old has a fully formed, fully explored vision of what they’d like to do with their life for the next 45 years. This business approach of giving the “customer” what they ask for is foolish, unethical, and anti-educational. But any other approach appears to threaten the revenue stream which funds both a bloated administration full of bureaucrats and also floats a lot of really great, really good programs that aren’t self-sustaining like languages, philosophy, anthropology – necessary modes of inquiry that can’t sustain themselves right now.
As Google’s move takes off and admissions starts to see students who are choosing to go the way of corporate certification, a defense will develop that will be terrible. Administrators are timid and easily panicked individuals. They like the trappings of an executive role – the suits, the meeting rooms, the cynical sneer and hallway conversations of those “in the know,” but they can’t face decision points, and can’t do anything in a crisis except repeat old arguments or backpedal. They enjoy the trappings and can’t do the work.
The defense we’ll get is one where the certificate is described as “not good enough” to secure the “best jobs.” Of course, this won’t be persuasive at all. People are already at their limit in what they will accept as the cost of university. They are at their limit in accepting the narrative that eccentric and mean professors are just part of the experience. The entire college experience seems to be accounted for with a ton of debt, a shrug, and the acceptance of a job and career path where paying off that loan is not something that will happen until retirement.
The defense against the Google move that the universities should make, but won’t, is to abandon the idea that the university makes a difference in career track. If you want a career, don’t come to college. If you are that sure, and that focused on what you want to do, go get the relevant certificates instead. But when you find your life to be somewhat shallow, when there’s nothing else to watch on Netflix, and when you are wondering about the purpose of all of this, then you can come to college to get a certificate in life, thought, citizenship, or inquiry.
The core curriculum is what the college should be doubling down on, that and the campus space. In COVID 19, we have lost the second one in totality. The first one though, that’s something that we all sort of feel, in the back of our minds, that the administration wishes we didn’t have. But here is what a job training program can’t get you: The practices in creating narrative, justification, and explanation that help you navigate everything from political polarization in the news to doubts about the nature and purpose of existence.
These conversations require time and space, and are probably best held when people are not panicking about what sort of job they are going to get. They are best when people have stories to share about their own experiences out in the world working with other people and experiencing life in a community. They are not taught at their best to 18 year olds whose experience with others in the world has primarily been under the draconian thumb of some high school teacher or principal.
The defense of the university should be to abandon the certification game in favor of the narrative game. The answer is in radically changing the narrative to one that plays on the strengths of college: Space, time, engagement, questioning, and conversation.