The skills-based hiring movement is gaining well-deserved momentum for several compelling reasons. Yet, despite considerable enthusiasm, recent research reveals that skills-based hiring influenced fewer than 1 in 700 hires last year, with most of the change attributed to a small subset of companies. BHEF is working to ensure that we marry the best of skills-based approaches with ensuring that all Americans also have access to affordable, high-quality, credential pathways into the economy of the future.

The Business-Higher Education Forum's fall convening addressed the challenges we face connecting talent to opportunity and focused on co-designing solutions to meet the fast-evolving needs of learners, industry, and our economy. Read more about what's next.

Earlier this year, BHEF launched its first-ever Faculty Innovation Fellowship. The fellowship brings together a curated network of faculty members – nominated by the presidents, chancellors, or deans of BHEF-member institutions and strategic partners – to launch or enhance new or innovative employer-aligned concepts on their campus as capstone projects. 

The time is ripe for business to partner with higher education on models for upskilling and reskilling. Higher education can demonstrate its value in developing upskilling initiatives in partnership with business in three compelling ways.

This roundtable session focused on “Green Jobs of the Future.” Buoyed by hundreds of billions of federal investments, corporate strategies focused on sustainability, green jobs, and green skills are among the fastest growing in the economy. The discussion centered on how we can address skills needs and cultivate the next generation of green talent.

In a competitive and fast changing global economy, we must build for relevance and impact by aligning education with business and industry needs. So what have decades of experience bridging the working and learning gap taught us about the key, replicable ingredients for success?

The term “green skills” isn’t a new one. But its presence as a driver for policy, workforce investment, job demand, and higher education alignment is roaring back.

The Business-Higher Education Forum convened education and business leaders at Miami Dade College in March 2024 to distill the latest insights on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the workforce and to share and develop proactive and collaborative strategies to address worker and learner needs.