It's interesting to attend post secondary schooling over an extended period of time. The last time I took an Adult Education course and reviewed the most recent EDUCAUSE Horizon Report, it was pre-COVID. Here's the newest Horizon Report. Here's also a picture for you if it's TLDR (too long, didn't read):

Something I learned reading this new Horizon Report was about the looming enrollment cliff that post secondary institutions are going to be facing, starting in 2025. Here's what my friend Google found for me about this Enrollment Cliff. It suddenly makes a lot of sense why post-secondary institutions are offering micro-credentials and the BC government is offering the Future Skills grant this semester - post secondary is needing to pivot and large institutions have difficulties doing this.

Under Economic Trends in the Horizon Report, it touches on unaffordablity and ROI for post-secondary education. Paying for an education is increasingly becoming unaffordable and there is little ROI for students to attend post secondary education. If you are hoping to hire/retain/retrain individuals as industry changes, the best locations to do this are at organizations that can pay a living wage while attending that training (eg - at work or as an apprenticeship model) The Horizon Report also touches on the need and demand increasing for lifelong, workplace learning.

I have personally found post-secondary academia to be missing a large section of adult education and training opportunities by not partnering with industry better - there is a plethora of training and development opportunities at workplaces that are absolutely untapped. There are mass retirements happening, with organizational knowledge being lost, with organizations needing those with the skillset and time to gather this information to be used to train internally in the future.

The implication for me is simple - stay the course in what I am doing right now. I need to continue to do shorter-term learning and development contracts to help employers capture their organizational knowledge for future learning and development opportunities. I need to continue to work within apprenticeship and trades. I need to continue to stay curious and stay on top of learning technologies and trends. I also need to understand more about AI and the impacts on learning, as well as how to work with AI to stay on top of the L&D curve at workplaces.