The Urgent Need for a New Higher Ed System with Keil Dumsch, Writer, Editor, and Education Reformer

In this episode of Illuminate Higher Education, N2N Services CEO Kiran Kodithala speaks with Keil Dumsch, online content writer, editor, and committed education reformer.

Interestingly, Keil doesn't come from an education background. He felt compelled to jump off the sidelines as a concerned citizen back in 2009, because he felt the situation with student debt had reached a critical mass.

Getting familiar with the structure of our education system led him to believe that there is a combination of fecklessness, muddled thinking, and overall inability to really highlight the problems with higher education—not only in colleges themselves, but also in the media and the government. None of them are doing their due diligence to spur the immediate reform that we need. Twelve years have passed since beginning of his entry into education reform, and we still have the same problems.

Keil explains that we need an educational system where we are working with employers to make sure that people are getting the necessary schooling across their lives, which means making education more affordable, more customized, and more flexible—through remote teaching or at-your-own-pace teaching. 

For the general component of education, we need to put our heads together to figure out how we can ensure that people are getting that general education outside of college as well.

Fact Check:

Keil would like to correct the remarks he made in the interview about Dow Chemical's hiring practices, after checking with his friend (an employee there) for clarification. Dow does hire many packaging science majors from Clemson and Michigan State, since those two colleges have excellent programs in those majors. The company also hires from a great number of other colleges, from the military, and from a wide variety of other applicant backgrounds.

Keil does not wish to single out any one company for its hiring practices. His general point is that overall, white-collar professional employment is too dependent on college degrees, with elite or brand-name college degrees often given preference in many industries. Lauren Rivera's book Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs covers this problem in detail.

In addition, Keil wants to clarify that the higher education documentary Broke, Busted, and Disgusted (an excellent documentary that he recommends watching), does cite the need for better financial education of students and parents, but does not treat it as the sole solution to the problem of runaway college costs. In fact, the film proposes a number of other solutions, such as reducing college costs and offering students apprenticeships and pathways to skilled trades.

Connect with Keil Dumsch on Linkedin:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/keil-dumsch-6341042/

This episode is brought to you by N2N’s Illuminate App, The iPaaS for Higher Education. Learn more at https://illuminateapp.com/web/higher-education/

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