With unemployment at a record high, it’s a natural to turn to education to help strengthen the skills of the unemployed workers to make them employable again. However, two higher-ed experts (Jamie P. Merisotis, president of the Lumina Foundation for Education, and Stan Jones, president of Complete College America) argue that academia isn’t prepared to give unemployed workers what they need – real-world, credential-producing training, done at an accelerated pace.
Community colleges offer training courses and credentials, but often there are no options outside the traditional semester-based schedule. For-profits have faster schedules but are expensive (especially when the students don’t have any income) and don’t offer practical enough training.

The full article is available via The Chronicle. What do you think? Is your institution prepared to serve the needs of this kind of student? One who needs credentials – real, practical training – quickly. How is your academic policy adapting?