A new SHEEO State Priorities Survey just dropped, and 97% of state higher education leaders said workforce development is either "important" or "very important." Ninety-seven percent. Almost nobody disagreed.
Here's my reaction: great. Now what?
Saying something is a priority is the easiest thing in the world. It costs nothing. A survey response isn't a plan. And we have a pretty specific problem to plan around: Georgetown's Center on Education and the Workforce projects a 5.25 million worker shortfall in postsecondary-educated workers by 2032. Of that gap, 4.5 million jobs will require at least a bachelor's degree. That's not a distant threat. That's six years from now.
Students enrolling today will graduate directly into that reality. So what are institutions actually doing about it?
The gap between intent and action
The SHEEO survey covered several promising strategies: dual enrollment, work-based learning, fast-track credentials, employer partnerships, and the Workforce Pell Grant program rolling out in 2026. All legitimate approaches. None of them new.
My concern is that we've been having this conversation for a long time. Workforce development in higher education has been a "top priority" in surveys before. The question is whether this cycle actually looks different, or whether schools announce a few programs, check some boxes, and call it done.
I've seen the box-checking version up close. A school builds a new career center building, throws a ribbon-cutting ceremony, and considers the problem addressed. The building doesn't staff itself. It doesn't build employer pipelines. It doesn't help a first-generation student figure out what career she actually wants. Facilities don't solve advising capacity.
The gap between "workforce development is a priority" and "we've built systems that actually move the needle" is enormous. Most institutions are somewhere in the middle, closer to the first end than the second.
What real action looks like
If I were running a career services operation right now, here's how I'd think about it. Not as a strategic framework. Just as a series of questions that force real decisions.
Start with the market, not the vendor
Before calling a single vendor, spend two weeks mapping your regional labor market. What are the actual hiring gaps in your area? Which employers are growing? Which roles are hardest to fill? What skills do those employers say they can't find? AI tools make this research faster than it's ever been. You can pull job posting data, employer hiring trends, and salary bands in an afternoon. Do that first. Then you know what you're building toward.
Think end-to-end, not just one piece
Workforce outcomes depend on a chain of things working together. Career advising. Academic preparation. Experiential learning. Employer relationships. Alumni community. A job offer is the result of all those pieces functioning, not any one of them in isolation. If you improve advising but don't have employer relationships, students are better prepared to apply for jobs they won't get. If you have great employer relationships but students aren't ready, you burn those relationships fast.
On the experiential learning side, tools like Riipen and Podium have made project-based learning with real employers much easier to run at scale. On the employer relationship side, Handshake remains the standard for building and managing those pipelines. These aren't magic, but they're real infrastructure.
The career advising and readiness piece is where we focus at Prentus. Students need more personalized support than most institutions can deliver at their current staffing levels. That's not a criticism — it's just the math. One advisor supporting 300+ students can't have meaningful, repeated conversations with every single one. AI-assisted advising helps close that gap.
Run real pilots with real success criteria
Pilot programs are good. But a pilot without defined success criteria is just spending money without accountability. Before you start, write down what success looks like at 90 days, six months, and one year. Then measure it. If the intervention isn't moving those numbers, that's information. Adjust or stop.
The failure mode I see often: schools pilot something, get minimal data, decide it's fine because nothing obviously went wrong, and keep it running indefinitely. That's not a pilot, that's a permanent program with no accountability structure. Define what you're trying to learn before you spend a dollar.
On AI specifically
There's a version of institutional caution I respect: "We want to understand how AI changes hiring before we invest in AI career tools." That's reasonable in theory. The problem is that the timeline doesn't work. A student enrolling this fall graduates in 2030. If your institution spends two years watching how AI shakes out before doing anything, that student gets none of the benefit during their entire time with you.
Employers aren't waiting. They're already using AI to screen resumes, structure interviews, and assess candidates. Students who don't know how to navigate that environment are at a real disadvantage. Waiting isn't neutral.
The better approach is to run a thoughtful pilot now, with a clear hypothesis and real metrics. See what works. Adjust based on evidence. That's faster and smarter than watching from the sidelines for two years.
The SHEEO data is actually an opportunity
I don't want to sound cynical about the survey results, because I do think they matter. SHEEO's policy priorities work shapes how state systems think about funding and legislation. The fact that 97% of leaders see this as important creates political space for schools to take real risks. If workforce development is a top priority at the state level, career services teams should be able to make a case for more resources, more staffing, and more room to experiment.
That's the flip side of my frustration. When there's consensus at the top, it's actually easier to push for change at the program level. The ground is softer right now than it usually is. Use it.
- Map your market first. Before evaluating any programs or vendors, understand the specific hiring gaps in your region. AI tools make this faster than it's been before.
- Build the full chain. Advising, experiential learning, employer relationships, and community all have to work together. Improving one without the others produces diminishing returns.
- Define success before you pilot. Write down the numbers you're trying to move. Measure them. Be honest about what the data says.
- Don't wait on AI. Students enrolling now will graduate into a job market shaped by AI hiring tools. Start building that preparation into your programming today.
- Use the political momentum. Leadership consensus is rare. Right now it exists for workforce development. Use it to get the resources and room to experiment.
The 5.25 million worker gap won't close because higher education leaders checked "very important" on a survey. It closes when institutions build systems that actually get students ready for the jobs that exist. That requires investment, experimentation, and the willingness to be honest when something isn't working.
None of that is easy. But the timeline is real, the data is clear, and the political conditions are as good as they're likely to get. This is the moment to move.
If you want to talk through how AI-assisted career advising fits into your workforce development strategy, I'd welcome that conversation.
