Description
Product Description
Every year, the cost of a four-year degree goes up, and the value goes down. But for many students, there’s a better answer.
So many things are getting faster and cheaper. Movies stream into your living room, without ticket or concession-stand costs. The world’s libraries are at your fingertips instantly, and for free.
So why is a college education the only thing that seems immune to change? Colleges and universities operate much as they did 40 years ago, with one major exception: tuition expenses have risen dramatically. What's more, earning a degree takes longer than ever before, with the average time to graduate now over five years.
As a result, graduates often struggle with enormous debt burdens. Even worse, they often find that degrees did not prepare them to obtain and succeed at good jobs in growing sectors of the economy. While many learners today would thrive with an efficient and affordable postsecondary education, the slow and pricey road to a bachelor's degree is starkly the opposite.
In A New U: Faster + Cheaper Alternatives to College, Ryan Craig documents the early days of a revolution that will transform—or make obsolete—many colleges and universities. Alternative routes to great first jobs that do not involve a bachelor’s degree are sprouting up all over the place. Bootcamps, income-share programs, apprenticeships, and staffing models are attractive alternatives to great jobs in numerous growing sectors of the economy: coding, healthcare, sales, digital marketing, finance and accounting, insurance, and data analytics.
A New U is the first roadmap to these groundbreaking programs, which will lead to more student choice, better matches with employers, higher return on investment of cost and time, and stronger economic growth.
Review
“Technology has provided us with limitless opportunity to innovate and customize every aspect of our lives, but our education system regretfully remains stuck in the past. Ryan Craig makes a compelling argument for positively disrupting the concept of higher education in America so that we can continue to drive the competitive global economy.”
—Jeb Bush, 43rd Governor of Florida and founder and chairman of the Foundation for Excellence in Education
“Every parent, counselor, mentor, and educator should read this book. We owe it to our students and kids to understand what’s happening in higher education in America to prepare ourselves to provide the best possible advice on college.”
—Allen Blue, co-founder of LinkedIn
“Ryan Craig succinctly outlines how higher education will be reshaped by forces already seeded and in play. College and university leaders must listen to these signals from the future to effectively chart the path forward.”
—Van Ton-Quinlivan, executive vice chancellor of California Community Colleges
“Ryan Craig is one of the great thinkers and disruptors in postsecondary education today. He provides important insights into the challenges students face in navigating our current system, and offers provocative ideas on how to think differently about multiple pathways and new delivery models that can empower all individuals with the education and training they need to achieve the rewarding careers and fulfilling lives they deserve.”
—William D. Hansen, president and CEO of Strada Education Network and former US Deputy Secretary of Education
“Ryan Craig demonstrates that in a time when talent is at a premium, producing that talent in new and different ways must be a priority. A New U is really about a New Us, a world where faster, cheaper—and arguably better—learning will produce the talent we need in the 21st century.”
—Jamie Merisotis, president and CEO of Lumina Foundation
“A New U documents the clear misalignment of higher education's promise and delivery for students of today and the future. Craig makes a compelling case for transformative innovation in higher education and provides numerous examples of emerging opportunities. The question: