The four-year degree is still the default. For a growing number of learners, it is not the only path to a good job.

Kathleen deLaski founded Education Design Lab after seeing colleges struggle to respond to MOOCs, boot camps, changing employer needs, and pressure to unbundle the degree. She now serves as the Lab's board chair and writes Who Needs College Anymore?

Kathleen explains how community colleges are becoming regional talent hubs, why short-term credentials need to stack toward degrees, and what it takes to build a pathway with learners and employers in the room. She shares the apprenticeship experiment that failed, a behavioral-health pathway that forced employers to rethink entry-level roles, and why the hiring system is breaking under AI-generated resumes.

Chapters

00:00 Why Education Design Lab had to exist

04:31 Starting with design sprints at George Mason

06:35 The apprenticeship experiment that failed

08:08 Why community colleges moved first

15:21 Workforce Pell and the outcomes data problem

25:48 How micro-pathways are designed

30:00 Rebuilding the behavioral health pathway

33:34 AI can open up career pathways

38:34 The half-life of skills is getting shorter

43:18 Reimagining hiring with design thinking

45:51 Is skills-based hiring real yet?

48:44 What colleges should stop funding

50:07 The growth is in shorter credentials

51:06 Why Northeastern's co-op model matters

52:19 What an 18-year-old should do now

54:16 Where to follow Kathleen's work

Connect with Kathleen

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathleen-delaski-1089012b

Substack: https://kathleendelaski.substack.com/

Book: https://www.whoneedscollegeanymore.org/

Education Design Lab: https://educationdesignlab.org/

Education Design Lab on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/education-design-lab/

Education Design Lab on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@eddesignlab/videos

Getting students hired is the cheapest retention lever a school has, and almost nobody pulls it. The Unpulled Lever talks to the leaders who can help us learn why and how to fix it.

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