After decades of rapid growth, college enrollments leveled off about ten years ago and have been declining ever since. Students realized that college cost too much and delivered too little value, while employers realized that having a degree did not necessarily mean that an applicant would make a good worker.

But people wonder: Is there really an alternative?

After reading Kathleen deLaski’s book Who Needs College Anymore?, I’m convinced that there are several good alternatives. They are quickly developing and gaining traction with students and employers. I review the book today for the Martin Center.

She writes:

I believe we are on the cusp of a new era in which college as we know it could become an umbrella descriptor for several proud paths to adultification, skilling, or confidence building. In today’s fluid, do-it-yourself, just in time training culture, 62 percent of Americans are not earning a bachelor’s degree. They are finding alternatives and work-arounds, many hacking their way to sufficiency, a small number to lofty success.

What’s going on?

For one thing, lots of employers who used to see college degrees as a good indicator of a high work ethic and trainability now think that college grads have “too much baggage.” Their skills aren’t necessarily good and their attitudes are bad. Employers are starting to “fish upstream,” looking for prospective workers while they’re still in high school.

Moreover, students can often acquire the knowledge they need more rapidly and quickly through educational programs other than college coursework.

Except for a few professions where a college degree is a prerequisite to further study (especially law and medicine), there aren’t going to be many students who really need college, deLaski argues.

Her book is well researched and full of actual stories about smart young people who have figured out how to launch their careers without college credentials. If the people in charge of our current higher education system don’t have a strong sense of foreboding by now, then they aren’t paying attention.