4 conversations from UPCEA’s annual conference—and what’s next for PCO units

Last month, I had the opportunity to gather with professional, continuing, and online education (PCO) leaders at the annual UPCEA conference in Denver. It’s always an energizing experience for the research team and me to reconnect with our partners and make new connections. Across the sessions, receptions, and coffee-fueled chats, three themes resurfaced again and again… and a fourth conversation was notably unique.

1. Redoubling commitment to our mission, especially regionally

Across my three days in Denver, I spoke with attendees and heard from panelists about how PCO units’ service to our communities has never been more essential. My conversation with a professional studies dean at a state flagship institution was a great example. While this elite university offers exceptional programs, it can accommodate only 25,000 on-campus students every year. But it’s the PCO units’ certificates and degrees that bring programs to the 58% of the state without a college degree and that offer a high-quality graduate certificate to those furthering their education. I couldn’t wait to get home and share more of our resources on how she can award credit for prior learning to recognize the knowledge these adults bring into her programs, and how we can answer the question of if her certificates are too long to serve these students’ needs.

As one of the giants of continuing education put it, people need what professional, continuing, and online educators and leaders have to offer. Another leader described it as the world wanting something different from education, and PCO units being best poised to answer that demand.

2. Seeking growth but often without confidence in how we’ll get there today

As we take this opportunity to provide the education our communities need, attendees shared both excitement and concerns about growth. In the growth-focused sessions my team and I attended, every seat was filled, with many attendees even spilling into the aisles.

But what struck those of us who have been through these pivotal moments in PCO education before (think the Great Recession and COVID-19 or) was that growth aspirations feel a bit directionless this time. When we asked online education leaders their growth goals, often the answer was “more,” or continuing education leaders told us their enrollment needed to be “bigger.”

The Disconnect Between Goals and Resources, According to University Leaders

3. Adapting our work to Gen Z… and Gen Alpha

Kim Lear kicked off the conference with her insight into generational trends. In five years, Gen Z will be taking over as the majority adult learner demographic. Lear shared compelling insights about how Gen Z, influenced by the attitudes of their Gen X parents, is seeking unconventional pathways into education. We’re already seeing this play out in growing undergraduate non-consumption, which leaves me expecting that many of these students will need to someday find their way into PCO programs.

Some of our partners at more advanced PCO units are already seeing their competitive practices upended by generational changes—they aren’t just competing for students against the strong system the next state over, or the online giants, they’re competing against every other experience students could be having online. They’re up against HillmanTok University as the best case scenario, where students are watching top Black professors on TikTok and learning without enrolling in a traditional institution. The worst-case scenario gets to parts of the Internet I don’t visit. Gen Z is spending over four hours a day using apps of all sorts, and that can be either a connection to or more often a distraction from higher education.

4. Not losing sight of future investments amid political disruptions

When we said our goodbyes, one of the vice presidents for online we work with noted he was looking forward to having EAB researchers on campus in the coming weeks. My colleague Jon Rice was headed to the Midwest to share our latest insight into generative AI’s impact on the portfolio.

I had spent much of the conference hearing how panelists revised their sessions to address the latest political turmoil, grateful their broad session titles referencing disruptions hadn’t boxed them into talking about generative AI as the disruption du jour when proposals were submitted. But this VP had the foresight to recognize we can’t let today’s headlines crowd out our investments in the future.

One of the challenges we’re all facing in higher education is there’s so much happening right now, it feels impossible to lend our attention to the future. Unfortunately, that won’t slow the future from arriving. 70% of all knowledge-sector jobs will require a basic level of AI literacy just to perform the role, and that’s not counting the additional jobs that will require intermediate or even advanced AI knowledge and abilities. If we aren’t preparing our students for a world in which much of their jobs as we know them today have been automated and augmented by AI, we aren’t educating them like they need and deserve.

My final UPCEA conversation underscored my first: we must re-commit to our educational missions, especially regionally, and that requires us to keep abreast of evolving educational needs. That asks a lot of us. Navigating responses to unrest on campus, reconfiguring suddenly far-smaller budgets, and still figuring out what generative AI education our local employers need. But as Amy Heitzman asked when the conference opened, who better to lead the charge than us?