In a session at the ASU+GSV Summit, University Innovation Alliance founder and CEO Bridget Burns appeared on The Disagreement podcast to debate the current worth of higher education with Ryan Craig, Managing Director at Achieve Partners.
The two tackled a question that's becoming increasingly urgent: Is college still worth it, and for whom?
What followed was a rare, candid conversation between two national voices with sharply different perspectives, and surprising common ground. While Ryan pushed for alternative, skills-based models as the primary path to upward mobility, Bridget argued that higher education must evolve but remains vital to the health of our democracy, economy, and individual lives. The conversation explored higher ed’s evolving role in society, the cultural narrative around economic mobility, infusing academic programs with an awareness of the job market, and who ultimately benefits from college.
The Lasting Value of a College Education
Alex Grodd, host of The Disagreement, began the debate by simply asking, “Is college worth it?” Bridget answered with a resounding yes, and reframed the question to ask not just whether college pays off economically, but who it serves, how it contributes to society, and how it must evolve to do better:
“We want to live in a society of educated people because they vote 50% more. They live seven years longer. They contribute more to society. For every dollar invested in higher education, four goes back into the economy. They pay more taxes.”
She acknowledged that higher ed has work to do, particularly around improving ROI and supporting a broader range of students:
“We’ve made missteps in the past. But I work with a group of institutions that are actively refining, transforming, and improving. College is no longer just for 18- to 22-year-olds. It has to take seriously its responsibility to preserve economic competitiveness and the integrity of our democracy."
Bridget made it clear she wasn’t defending “for-profit education that has damaged the lives of millions,” but rather “good old American community colleges and universities” that offer a wide array of knowledge and skills—and still represent a path to possibility.
How to Measure the True Value of Higher Education
Ryan focused on the data presented in the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce’s Bridging the Middle-Skills Gap report, which details the volume of higher ed stopouts and dropouts, underemployed graduates, and the average family’s challenges in recouping the cost of a college education.
Bridget pushed back, not on the data itself, but on the narrow lens through which it's often interpreted:
“We know that economic mobility is the north star. So let’s ask: how do we measure it? Is it your first job? When did you feel like college was worth it? What was that moment? We need a shared framework for measuring value, but also a shared vision for what success looks like.”
She also challenged the idea that ROI should be calculated only in earnings:
“Anyone living in America right now wants to live in a society where people understand how to listen to each other's ideas, how to be nimble and malleable in their thinking. College is about more than content, it’s about awakening your soul.”
Ryan clarified that he isn’t opposed to higher ed, but rather to the cultural narrative that college’s one-size-fits-all approach is the only pathway to better upward economic mobility. He noted that over half of Americans no longer believe in the high cost and uncertain outcome of a classroom-, tuition-, and debt-based career-launch system. Meanwhile, alternative models should be taken seriously when addressing the complexity of the future.
“College is great if it works,” he said, “and it's not working for most people today. We have dramatically underinvested in earn-and-learn career launch infrastructure. Look at other countries. They're an order of magnitude or two higher in their investment in earn-and-learn. We've put all our chips on this one model for career launch, and it has not served us well.”
Bringing Work and Learning Together
Bridget pointed to innovative efforts at UIA member institutions that are blending academic and career pathways, like Arizona State University’s Work+ program, which reimagines on-campus employment for students:
“It grew from the recognition that we can sit here and complain about employers not treating our students well, not actually mentoring and teaching them, or we can recognize that we're the biggest employer of our own students. So let's fundamentally transform our role as an employer.”
She argued that higher ed should go further: career preparation shouldn’t be an add-on, it should be integrated into the classroom.
“The one place all students go is the classroom. So no more career services. Put it inside the classroom. Every single class should have a career readiness conversation. You should be equipped to go to a job interview and talk about what you did in the classroom.”
Bridget also argued that preparing students for the workforce shouldn’t be seen as a threat to higher ed’s mission, but embraced as part of it.
“Higher education has been uncomfortable admitting we play a role in preparing students for jobs. But that’s part of the value we offer. The question is: How do we integrate that without compromising the broader mission?”
She emphasized the need for a flexible, student-centered system that students can return to throughout their lives to grow and adapt.
“How do we make education broad, diverse, with lots of options to make sure you get your value out of it? How do we make it something you can go to and from as you want to learn and grow?”
Why College Isn’t a Business, and Shouldn’t Try to Be
Throughout the debate, Ryan challenged higher ed’s perceived detachment from market realities, arguing that earn-and-learn models offer more grounded, real-world preparation. But Bridget pointed to the complex realities of systemic inequality that can’t be fixed with one-size-fits-all solutions.
“Let’s be honest, there’s a race question missing here. When you look at industries where the vast majority of workers are very white, this is obviously a structural issue. So suggesting apprenticeships as a universal solution ignores the realities of income inequality and unequal opportunity.”
She explained that UIA is already working to close those gaps, through initiatives like the Black Student Success Initiative, while recognizing that equity requires systemic change, not shortcuts.
She also challenged the idea that higher ed should operate like a business:
“Businesses may build a program, invest thousands if not millions of dollars in the whole offering, and then pull the rug out. Most institutions are fighting to lower their costs. Purdue hasn’t raised their tuition in ten years. We can’t treat college like a business venture that didn’t perform as expected.”
And ultimately, she reframed the purpose of higher education:
“College may be different from businesses, but college is not apart from society. It represents absolutely the best of who we are, if we make it deliver on what it needs to. We have to ask ourselves: Who benefits from college? And the answer is all of us.”
Note: This episode of the University Innovation Alliance’s Innovating Together Podcast originally aired on June 9, 2025. The podcast appears live on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Resources Mentioned in This Episode
- “Bridging the Middle-Skills Gap” – Georgetown CEW (2025)
This landmark report explores how expanding access to middle-skill jobs, requiring more than a high school diploma but less than a four-year degree, can drive economic mobility. A must-read for anyone interested in the intersection of education and opportunity. - Work+ – Arizona State University
Bridget highlighted this program as a model for integrating real-world experience into campus life. ASU’s Work+ supports students employed by the university with training, mentorship, and flexible pathways to graduation. - Black Student Success Initiative – UIA
A case study in systems-level equity work. This initiative tackles racial disparities in graduation outcomes across UIA member institutions. A valuable resource for leaders designing more inclusive student success strategies. - The Disagreement Podcast – Alex Grodd
This podcast, which featured both Bridget and Ryan, models how to hold constructive public debates on controversial topics. - ASU+GSV Summit
The annual summit where education, tech, and workforce leaders convene to tackle the future of learning and work (and the venue for this debate). - Achieve Partners – Ryan Craig
Ryan’s firm invests in innovative approaches to workforce development and career-connected learning.
Watch the Archive
Bios of Guest and Co-Host
Ryan Craig currently serves as Managing Director at Achieve Partners. His commentary on the relationship between education and workforce regularly appears in the Gap Letter, Forbes, and Inside Higher Education. He is the author of the books Apprentice Nation: How the "Earn and Learn" Alternative to Higher Education Will Create a Stronger and Fairer America (2023), A New U: Faster + Cheaper Alternatives to College (2018), and College Disrupted: The Great Unbundling of Higher Education (2015). Mr. Craig was formerly Managing Director at University Ventures, and is a co-founder of Apprenticeships for America, a national nonprofit dedicated to scaling apprenticeships across the U.S. economy. He is also a member of the Los Angeles County Workforce Development Board, and a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute. Previously, he led the Education & Training sector at Warburg Pincus. Mr. Craig’s prior experience in higher education was at Columbia University. He founded and built Wellspring, a national network of boarding schools and summer camps for overweight and obese children, adolescents, and young adults. He began his career at McKinsey & Co. after receiving his bachelor's degree summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Yale University, and his law degree from the Yale Law School.
Co-Host: Bridget Burns, Executive Director, University Innovation Alliance
As a trusted advisor to university presidents and policymakers, Dr. Bridget Burns is on a mission to transform the way institutions think about and act on behalf of low-income, first-generation, and students of color. She is the founding CEO of the University Innovation Alliance, a multi-campus laboratory for student success innovation that helps university leaders dramatically accelerate the implementation of scalable solutions to increase the number of college graduates.
About Innovating Together
Innovating Together is an event series that happens live on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. It also becomes a podcast episode. Every week, we join forces with Inside Higher Ed and talk with a higher education luminary about student success innovations or a sitting college president or chancellor about how they're specifically navigating the challenges of leadership. We hope these episodes will leave you with a sense of optimism and a bit of inspiration.
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