The post-industrial American economy will favor college graduates who work in industries that increasingly cater to consumer demand for higher-quality and highly customized goods and services.
That is one of the key arguments of a new Georgetown University report released Monday and which purports to offer a look “underneath the hood of the nation’s economy.”
“Producing today’s high-quality goods and services requires employees to have a deeper knowledge of their fields of study and a better understanding of applications on the job,” the study states.
“Growing demands for variety and customization require the flexibility to master short production runs and various consumer interactions,” it continues. “The endless quest for innovation requires deep domain knowledge, critical thinking skills, creativity, and a tolerance for change.”
The report — titled “The Economy Goes to College: The Hidden Promise of Higher Education in the Post-Industrial Service Economy” — is authored by Anthony P. Carnevale, director of the Georgetown Center on Education and Workforce, and Stephen J. Rose, a public policy research professor at George Washington University.
The report found that, while college-educated workers are just 32 percent of the workforce, they now produce more than 50 percent of the nation’s economic output, up from 13 percent in 1967.
And more than 60 percent of the workforce has at least some college education, up from just one-quarter of adults in 1967.
