Kathleen deLaski

Kathleen deLaski is an education and workforce designer, as well as a futurist. She founded the Education Design Lab in 2013 to help colleges begin the journey to reimagine higher education toward the future of work. Her non-profit has helped 1200 colleges, orgs and economic regions design shorter, more affordable pathways for learners to achieve their economic goals. Stepping down after a decade as CEO of the Lab, Kathleen serves as board chair there and on the board of Credential Engine. She spends time as a senior advisor to the Project on Workforce at Harvard University and  teaches human-centered design and higher ed reform as an adjunct professor in the Honors College at George Mason University, where she also served as an appointee to the Board of Visitors. Kathleen has long played a dual role as a philanthropist, managing the deLaski Family Foundation, which has been a 25-year grant maker in education reform, wellbeing, sustainable agriculture and the arts. In a previous career, Kathleen spent twenty years as a TV and then a digital journalist, including time as ABC News White House correspondent. Followed by a political appointment as the first female Pentagon spokesperson. 

Why I wrote this book

After spending 20 years in various aspects of K-12 and higher education reform, and helping colleges build their own innovation muscle to reimagine college, I saw a need to cut through the hype to understand the trends, the research and the failed experiments. Fewer Americans are choosing college and even more worry about whether they can afford it or whether it will continue to deliver the same version of the American Dream it did for their parents’ generation. As I interviewed 150 employers, college administrators, high school counselors and families, I was so struck by the competing narratives that have wrung families into stressful knots, including for my own family’s journey.  I am an optimist and a human-centered designer, so the book will be full of work-arounds, and disruptors who are figuring out how to ride the waves of change, advice on who actually does need college, anymore, and a glimpse at the future landscape that skills-based hiring and AI and fast changing careers are forcing us to navigate and master.