Ben Wildavsky – författare

A persuasive case for building career success through broad education, targeted skills, and social capitalYoung people coming out of high school today can expect to hold many jobs over the course of their lives, which is why they need a range of essential skills. The Career Arts provides a corrective to the widespread and misleading notion that there is a direct trade-off between going to college and acquiring practical job skills. Ben Wildavsky cuts through the noise and anxiety surrounding this issue to offer sensible, clear-eyed guidance for anyone who is making decisions about education and career preparation with a view to getting ahead in the workforce.Drawing on evidence-based research, illuminating case studies, and in-depth interviews, Wildavsky shares the most vital lessons of what he calls the career arts, which include cultivating a mix of broad and targeted skills, taking advantage of employer-funded education benefits, and preparing for the world as it is, not as you wish it could be. He explains why college remains the gold standard of credentials, and presents the most promising high-quality supplements and alternatives to college that can help learners combine general and job-specific skills. He shows how building social capital is also critical to success, particularly for disadvantaged students.An invaluable guidebook for students, parents, counselors, and educators, The Career Arts reveals why college education and job preparation are not either-or propositions and identifies the blend of education and networking needed to support real-world career aspirations.

How global competition for the brightest minds is changing higher educationIn The Great Brain Race, former U.S. News & World Report education editor Ben Wildavsky presents the first popular account of how international competition for the brightest minds is transforming the world of higher education--and why this revolution should be welcomed, not feared. Every year, nearly three million international students study outside of their home countries, a 40 percent increase since 1999. Newly created or expanded universities in China, India, and Saudi Arabia are competing with the likes of Harvard and Oxford for faculty, students, and research preeminence. Satellite campuses of Western universities are springing up from Abu Dhabi and Singapore to South Africa. Wildavsky shows that as international universities strive to become world-class, the new global education marketplace is providing more opportunities to more people than ever before.Drawing on extensive reporting in China, India, the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, Wildavsky chronicles the unprecedented international mobility of students and faculty, the rapid spread of branch campuses, the growth of for-profit universities, and the remarkable international expansion of college rankings. Some university and government officials see the rise of worldwide academic competition as a threat, going so far as to limit student mobility or thwart cross-border university expansion. But Wildavsky argues that this scholarly marketplace is creating a new global meritocracy, one in which the spread of knowledge benefits everyone--both educationally and economically. In a new preface, Wildavsky discusses some of the notable developments in global higher education since the book was first published.