The Rise of the Frontline Learner
Many already in the workforce want to boost their earning potential and advance in their career, but due to cost or time, college is not an option.
It’s been a minute since I’ve written a post. I’ve been busy with my day job at Chegg focused on the upskilling and reskilling revolution. I spend all my days thinking through how to get the largest number of working adults the skills they need for the jobs they want. As I’ve said many times: skills unlock economic mobility.
Yesterday, we released a report I put together with my colleagues on the rise of the frontline learner. Surveying working adults with low or medium incomes from across the US, we found out what they want to achieve through education, what pressures they face, and what types of educational programs could help meet their needs. What did we find?
Price and affordability are top concerns
Working adults are highly cost-sensitive when it comes to additional education. In fact, financial considerations tend to predominate for this cohort – understandably so when one considers the pressures of, for example, providing for a family on a low or medium income.
When we asked our respondents about their top three priorities for an education program (out of eight possible options), “affordable tuition” (42%) was the most popular response for top priority by some margin– beating both “career/salary outcomes” (28%) and “flexible/self-paced courses” (28%).
The fact of the matter is most education is unaffordable for working adults. One respondent said: “Most education is too expensive, I could probably make time for it, but then I’d be taking time away when I’m earning money on the side, so it’s still too expensive.”
Employer funded tuition makes skills education accessible
If the financial consideration of tuition costs could be eliminated, working adults showed a considerable appetite for more education. In fact, 61% said they would pursue a “professional certificate” program within the next year if it was fully funded by their employer.
Adult learners favor career advancement rather vs. career change
Working adults more often see education as a path to a better position and salary within the organization they already work in. Why is this so important? This means that companies who are experiencing a gap in talent, like with the 500k unfilled cyber security roles in America, could fill these open roles by training their own frontline employees in these skills. The data shows their employees want to stay. They also want economic mobility. See how everyone wins here?
There is a whole lot more in the report, which you can read here. As you can tell, I like my job and I see skills education as a silver bullet to solving the talent gap, underemployment, and even unemployment in this country.
You can read more about these findings on the Chegg channels here: