The Futures of Continuing Education

Continuing education is experiencing something of a renaissance. In the years immediately preceding the pandemic, continuing education programs were already seeing significant growth as corporate demand for workforce training, certifications, skills development, and specialization increased. Although higher education enrollments experienced significant declines, especially among community colleges, interest in and demand for continuing education did not wane. As the pandemic (hopefully) begins to end, it might be worth asking ourselves what the future of continuing education might look like considering recent and current trends.

Taking stock of the current landscape, we can identify three primary drivers of change that are shaping and will continue to shape, continuing education right now: technology, job dissatisfaction, and the rise of microcredentials.

Technology is shaping continuing education in at least a couple of important ways. First, a number of noncredit course management platforms have emerged, offering core functionalities that include course/curriculum management, finance and payment, and reporting. These platforms are helping institutions deliver, manage, and measure the effectiveness of noncredit classes while improving business process efficiency. Second, the ubiquitous deployment of videoconferencing, learning management systems, and online collaborative tools by students, faculty, and staff during the pandemic has normalized their use in educational settings. With students and instructors now more adept at learning and teaching in digital environments, the market for continuing education offerings is no longer bound to a physical location.

While the pandemic did not cause the Great Resignation (or Big Quit), it certainly created an opportunity for people to consider acting on their general workplace and career dissatisfaction. After months of working remotely, the prospects of a daily commute to a job that was not interesting or meaningful and had no prospects for advancement or wage increases beyond the cost of living were not attractive. Nearly two-thirds of the workforce began exploring employment options in 2021, and many people needed to reskill or upskill to secure a new position or a new career.

EDUCAUSE has identified microcredentials an important trend shaping the higher education teaching and learning community. Although microcredentials have a long way to go before they are fully embraced by higher education, students, and employers, much of the groundwork is being laid by both institutions and vendors for microcredentials to become a standardized and important part of a learner’s permanent, yet flexible, record.

These three trends, when considered together, might suggest to some a rosy future for continuing education. However, none of these drivers of change are fixed and immutable, nor do they consider the agency of the individuals who are making decisions in this context and constrained by a host of factors particular to their circumstances. So, rather than speaking about the future of continuing education in the singular, it may behoove us to consider a few possible futures.

Drawing on the Institute for the Future (IFTF) scenarios tool, I analyzed the three drivers of change listed above to develop thumbnail sketches of possible futures based on four archetypes:

• Growth considers the continuation of current trends with minimal disruption
• Constraint explores the impact of core guiding values on governing behavior
• Collapse flirts with the idea of a rapid systems and infrastructure breakdown
• Transformation contemplates fundamental changes to a system around a new paradigm

It’s important to emphasize that these mini scenarios are not predictions about the future, but are plausible forecasts, grounded in a current understanding of affairs, with an eye to answering the question, “What if…?”

Growth

Continuing education continues to experience the rapid growth and expansion it has enjoyed in recent years. Technology has made the delivery of continuing education courses, programs, and curricula easier, more efficient, and very profitable. The demand for technology skills continues to fuel much of the growth, but institutions that dial in on local business needs and whet the appetite of international students for business skills development are thriving. Academic higher education sees the long-term value of continuing education program expansion, especially in light of diminishing tuition revenue, and makes strategic investments to grow continuing education programming and partnerships.

Constraint

Demand for reskilling and upskilling falls as the number of resignations returns to pre-Great Resignation levels and people settle into their new careers. Observing these trends, academic higher education refocuses its efforts on the delivery of for-credit degree programs, suggesting that the spike in growth continuing education experienced during the pandemic was an exaggeration of a normal cyclical pattern. Initiatives to recognize microcredentials and approve comprehensive learning records are mothballed as threats to the institutional brand. The lack of commitment to continuing education and microcredentialing is punctuated by a reduction in continuing education staff due to efficiencies derived from noncredit course management solutions. Reductions in continuing education budgets make it difficult to attract quality instructional talent.

Collapse

Many higher education institutions fail to see the long-term practical and financial value of continuing education programs, double down on failing tuition-based budget models, and shutter or contract out continuing education functions to third parties. The technologies that fueled pandemic growth in continuing education fail to transform the continuing education business processes, and Zoom fatigue leads many seeking lifelong learning opportunities to pursue more traditional methods of instruction. Furthermore, alternative credentials are largely rejected by the academy in favor of traditional documentation and fail to gain traction with employers in most business sectors.

Transformation

Higher education embraces practical continuing education as a critical complement to its academic mission. Student systems that support nonprofit institutions are transformed to incorporate the nonterm dimensionality of continuing education offerings, creating an unprecedented degree of flexibility into the management of student records. The traditional transcript has been replaced with comprehensive learner records (CLRs) that document not only student performance in academic courses of study but also the certifications and microcredentials students earn via continuing education programs and other practical experiences. The promise of lifelong learning begins to be fully realized as the false choice between a liberal arts education and practical skills training erodes.

These scenarios are just four of any number of possible futures that we can imagine with a limited number of inputs. Again, these are not predictions, nor are they meant to be the final word. Instead, think of them as an invitation for further conversation, planning, and action. Given what we know about the current trends shaping continuing education, I think the most likely scenario is a patchwork of the ones outlined above, and that patchwork will vary by institution type and mission. Demand will continue to grow, and many institutions will embrace the opportunity to generate revenue while cultivating local and sector specializations. Research and liberal arts institutions may be resistant to the institutional and technological changes required enter or expand continuing education opportunities.

Which of the futures presented here seem the most plausible or likely? The least? What other drivers of change should we be considering? What do you think the future of continuing education looks like?