Employers have voiced skepticism about U.S. graduates’ ability to handle workplace demands
“Judgement is the skill that learning produces,” the committee wrote, “and it is the university’s most important contribution to a modern democracy.”
The report described a risk-averse student body anxious about the cost of college and finding a good job. Employers, the committee wrote, hold a “jarring” skepticism about the current generation’s ability to handle workplace demands, solve problems without clear answers, and recover from setbacks.
In many instances, the committee recommended a return to the basics. That includes more project-based learning and teaching time management strategies such as “navigating competing priorities, assessing workload, anticipating expectations, and adapting to personal and academic circumstances.”
Cornell students who pay full-cost spend nearly $400,000 for an undergraduate degree. The committee found expense along with opaque pricing to be a source of public distrust. But it advised against shortening the time to a degree to three years or leaning in to online education, and instead suggested establishing a task force to develop a new tuition model.
For the university’s own finances, the report urged school leaders to push for robust federal and state funding, following the Trump administration’s attacks on research dollars. Regarding research, the committee recommended examining “publish-or-perish incentives that emphasize quantity over quality.”
