In the last decade, a raucous chorus of critics has found common cause taking down the once hallowed American institution of college. Some claim that it’s degenerated into a left-wing brainwashing factory, a right-wing privilege machine, or a cushy jobs program for faculty and staff. Others lament alleged patterns of coddling fragility, conditioning conformity, or locking young people into decades of indebtedness. And then there are the denunciations—heightened since October 7th—that truth, reason, facts, impartiality, and civil dialogue are relics of a bygone time.
While there’s much to discuss and reform, such broadsides all miss one central fact, the proverbial baby in the bathwater, which is that an excellent undergraduate education still provides substantial lifelong benefits. One indicator is the well-documented wage premium, which shows that college graduates earn at least $1 million more than high school graduates over their working lives. But there’s a complementary value proposition I explore in my new book, Mindset Matters: The Power of College to Activate Lifelong Growth, which takes readers inside the learning journeys of 30 recent graduates of Franklin & Marshall College, where I served as president from 2011 to 2018. Here’s the gist of my argument:
The rates of change in our economy and our lives are accelerating rapidly, for good and for ill, thanks to revolutionary technologies including generative artificial intelligence. Our jobs and ways of working are transforming at warp speed. The same goes for our information systems, access to data, scientific knowledge, medical technologies, and defense, financial, and commercial systems. Adding to the upheaval are factors like climate change and demographic shifts worldwide.
In today’s tech-fired economy, people and places that can’t keep up with the bullet trains of change will fall faster and further behind. To do so, workers need to increase their capacity to perpetually learn and develop, alone and in teams, as acts of will and skill and even identity. Adaptability and agility will advantage people in the twists and turns of their careers much more than any single credential or time-limited mastery.
And that’s where college comes in—because a quality holistic education helps activate a growth mindset, which, to paraphrase psychologist Carol Dweck, is the experience-based conviction that we can learn and expand our capabilities. No belief is more empowering as quickening waves of change break against our shores, because, with this mindset, we know that we can define and direct our own development, whatever the tide may bring. Unfortunately, far too many people hold the opposite view, the fixed mindset, which Dweck defines as the belief that our abilities are set in stone and thus cannot be enhanced by aspiration, instruction, or effort.
Having taught and mentored more than 2,000 undergraduates, I’ve seen firsthand how the core activities and cultures of college activate five forms of the growth mindset that are durable plus factors in today’s shape-shifting labor economy—the mindsets to discover, to create, to collaborate, to mentor, and to strive for growth that stems from their values.
The Mindset to Discover
As an 18-year-old, Eddie Alsina brought insatiable curiosity to F&M’s small classes and undergraduate research opportunities. However, he told me, his first neuroscience course “kicked my butt, because it required showing the thinking process”—not just getting the correct answer. Even when he mastered that skill in basic chemistry and organic chemistry, he said “the courses pushed well beyond rote memory for a synthesis of the various factors in play.” Those initial classes also taught him that high-level science was about offering, testing, and refining hypotheses, “a process defined by facts, not feelings.” Through four years of well-sequenced learning, including rigorous lab work with faculty, Eddie came to realize that he could learn, that he knew how to learn, and that he loved learning—a discovery mindset that fueled his later success in a PhD program in clinical psychology and behavioral medicine.
The Mindset to Create
In her first year, Jael Lewis responded to anonymous racist social media posts by making a stunning art exhibition called #BLACKYAK that invited viewers to write public messages of solidarity and anti-racism. Inspired by the act and fact of creating her own product, in a campus community where myriad peers were also making and innovating, she went on to produce a dance performance, launch a make-up business, cofound a Divine Nine sorority chapter, and develop a research project on the history of minstrel shows. Activated by four years in a cauldron of student creativity, Jael is now the chief marketer for a small business that is overhauling its brand.
The Mindset to Mentor
Having been shown the ropes by faculty and upper-class students from the day he arrived, Keiran Miller saw that mentorship was the flywheel of campus culture. During college he advised high school students, mentored first-years, led a men’s group, served as a residence adviser, and cofounded a spoken-word poetry club. By mentoring constantly, he grew constantly—coming to believe that mentoring “makes me part of who I am.” Energized by this mindset, after graduation Keiran chose to advise rural high school students for two years and then earned leadership roles in two college access programs.
The Mindset to Collaborate
The first college-goer in her family, Katrina Wachter realized early on that while individual achievement brought her to F&M, “college would be about the work of collectives.” During her four years she teamed up with classmates to write the constitution of her College House, conduct neuroscience research, produce a musical showcase, and support her sorority sisters. These invitations to collaborate came to her organically because college requires students to work in groups every day—through classes, jobs, athletics, clubs, friend groups, spiritual communities, and campus governance. As a result, Katrina deepened her gifts for unlocking “the power of we,” which she draws on now as a commissioned U.S. Army psychiatrist working with soldiers and civilians.
The Mindset to Strive
For Carolina Giraldo, a Colombian immigrant determined to test herself and “make every day count,” F&M provided a rousing bounty of possibilities. She didn’t just take premed courses; she sought out professors to learn more efficient ways to learn science and to help with biochemistry and genetics research. She didn’t just work out in the campus gym; she joined the crew program and pushed herself to all-conference accolades. She didn’t just sample an art class; she met with the professor on Saturdays and created a portfolio of paintings of campus spaces she loved. F&M gave her an opportunity-rich ecosystem perfect for her calling to chase and live and reflect on her learning. When her beloved father passed away, Carolina’s sense of purpose and identity as a striver became a compass guiding her through a blinding fog of grief. Powered by this mindset, knowing deep down that “My education is determined by me,” she went on to excel in the rigors of medical school and will soon begin her residency.
Growth mindsets help us thrive in the choices and challenges of work and life. They’re integrative, uniting skills, learning experiences, and values from school, work, and cocurricular and social milieus. They’re accretive, strengthening with use.
They’re also authentic to the individual for, having emerged from one’s unique strengths, desires, purposes, and history of growth, and from the narrative of one’s life, they become an element of self-proclaimed identity. I am a discoverer, Eddie Alsina will believe when confronted with a knotty work problem—because he’s done it before. I am a creator, Jael Lewis will remember when on-the-job success requires out-of-the-box invention—because she knows how to do it again. Growth mindsets are really a flexible form of talent helping us adapt to real-time disruption and sometimes guide it.
These mindsets also serve us well across the arc of a career, given that constant self-learning and reinvention are essential to professional advancement and success. Imagine, for example, a young person who hopes to found a financial services company. She’ll need to stay ahead of the curve in the dynamic field of finance through unceasing discovery while building knowledge outside of her daily job duties about what goes into running a business. She’ll need to create her own distinctive contributions and solutions in role after role. She’ll need to collaborate effectively with diverse colleagues and get and give mentoring with every climb. And she’ll need to sustain a growth trajectory through the years and the inevitable pitfalls, easier to do with vitality if all this striving runs through her values rather than around them.
So, what is distinct about college that kindles these growth mindsets?
First, the invitation to form relationships with involved faculty and staff mentors who promote active and individualized learning, equipping students to drive their own development in the future.
Second, the freedom to chart their paths in a 24/7 campus community where discovery, creativity, mentorship, teamwork, and striving are cultural norms and everyday activities.
And third, the opportunity to create meaningful experiences over four years with hundreds of highly invested friends and peers like Carolina, Katrina, Keiran, Eddie, and Jael.
Many institutions are experimenting with new ways to activate lifelong growth. F&M, for example, has increased student research grants, kept class sizes small, replaced its traditional dormitories with student-led College Houses, built new maker spaces for artists and innovators, and transformed its career center from a job referral resource into a constellation of efforts to help students and young alums grow themselves for and in the world of work. We also found that tripling our investment in need-based student aid allowed us to identify and enroll many more growth-minded students like those described here. But schools everywhere and of every type are innovating as igniting perpetual learning moves from being a tacit benefit of college to an explicit goal.
One more factor is essential: We must challenge young people to lead their own learning. As 2017 graduate Nadia Johnson once said, “There is a set goal in high school: Get to college and go. But in college, you create your goal.” Growth mindsets can be encouraged but they cannot be installed. With their choices and their commitment, all students have the power to create the education they seek. When educators help the young to know and grow this power, we equip them to thrive in the unremitting change machine that we call life.
Excerpted and adapted with permission from Mindset Matters: The Power of College to Activate Lifelong Growth by Daniel R. Porterfield. Copyright 2024. Published with permission of Johns Hopkins University Press.
