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For most Americans, achieving financial security by landing a good job depends entirely on higher education. However, there is increasing scepticism regarding affordability and quality of higher education available today, says a Gallup and Lumina Foundation recent report.

Americans today increasingly favour education systems that are beneficial and feasible for working adults. During the survey, many respondents opined that it would be good if credits were awarded for what students learnt prior to coming to college and skills they acquired outside the classroom.

Today there is a huge demand for post-secondary education, according to Gallup Education foundation executive director Brandon Busteed. He says that Americans today want something different and they look through a job focused and pragmatic lens on the higher education which is driving economic and civic demands.

On behalf of Lumina, researchers from Gallup conducted interviews of at least 1000 patients in the latter half of 2012. Though they do not think that the current model is perfect, Americans definitely acknowledge that our financial stability and employment scenario depends a lot on postsecondary education.

Most people without a college degree said that they thought about going back to college in the past year as the idea of earning a college degree is still powerful in spite of the obvious concerns.
Lumina’s college completion agenda could benefit from a critical boost by the enthusiasm displayed, the said agenda being to restore our country as a world leader in college degree completion by 2025. The major goal is to ensure that certificate, high-quality degree and other credentials are held by at least 60% people in our country.

He went on to say that quality of education is what matters the most at the end of the day. Americans now do not want just a degree but a good job out of college. Out-dated notions on the definition of students, how to educate them and conduct an assessment of what they have learnt and find out reasons why they enrol in college could be shed by policy makers and campus officials inspired by the higher education policy.

According to Southern New Hampshire University president Paul J. LeBlanc, quality education could be delivered to students based on innovations by colleges liberated enough to break free of the currently defined credit hour. Following the release of the report, he gave a speech during the panel discussion.

He said that a direct determination of student learning was made possible at his institution that focused on basing education on competency. This was a powerful approach, he said, that was approved by the regional accreditor of the university will allow students to earn credits based purely on a series of assessments and not only on class attendance.

Some of the most necessary approaches we must implement on an urgent basis include better communication between elementary and secondary schools and the policy makers, meaningful engagement by civic leaders and stronger partnerships between the industry and campuses. He said that this is the only way to create an education landscape that will benefit the coming generations of students.