Cross-posted with permission from Forbes.
Ask employers what they want from new graduates in the age of AI, and you’ll hear a list that sounds a lot like good citizenship.
As technology upends the entry-level job market, employers keep saying the same thing: they need people who can communicate, cooperate with colleagues, and think through complex problems. Those are the basic human skills that will stay valuable no matter what the chatbots and robots eventually master.
It’s time to stop calling these “soft skills” and recognize them for what they’ve always been — the foundational disciplines of working and living with other people in a big and vibrant country. These skills matter as much to our economic future as to our civic life, and students need plenty of opportunity to hone them through experience.
Civic Skills Are Human Skills
Young people need real-world civic practice as much as traditional civic knowledge. Effective preparation for civic life isn’t just knowing the three branches of government or memorizing the Bill of Rights, important as that is.
Civic preparation means repeated experience with having productive conversations, using credible information, and collaborating to do something useful, even with people whose background and politics may be different from your own. Colleges must treat democracy not as an abstract idea taught in textbooks, but as a daily habit built through practice.
These habits extend far beyond politics. They are how people make decisions, navigate disagreement, and accomplish hard things together. They are the habits of a successful student, a good friend, a caring partner.
And they are exactly the skills employers say they can’t reliably find in recent graduates. The National Association of Colleges and Employers reports that hiring managers care less about GPA and major than about real experience working on a team, solving real challenges, and communicating clearly. Those skills are gaining importance in the AI age, when information is abundant but discernment and relational skills remain rarer.
The workplace is one of the few places where people of different backgrounds are thrown together and expected to set aside their differences for a shared goal. Getting comfortable with that takes practice — exactly what a solid civics education should deliver.
Civic Preparation And Career Preparation Reinforce Each Other
College leaders have begun to see that civic preparation and career preparation are not competing priorities. Done well, they reinforce each other. The student who learns to evaluate a questionable claim, navigate a difficult conversation, or work across disagreement is prepared for both public life and professional life.
When College Presidents for Civic Preparedness launched three years ago, the goal was that a few dozen leaders would sign on. Today, more than 140 presidents — from small liberal arts campuses to community colleges to flagship publics — have committed to putting civic skills back at the center of campus life.
“These skills are essential to day-to-day life,” says David Daigler, president of the Maine Community College System. “They’re essential relationship skills.” They shouldn’t be relegated to a one-off workshop or an elective class that only appeals to history buffs. They need to be built into the core curriculum and campus life, so every student graduates ready. Daigler is pushing faculty across every program to build challenging conversations into their coursework, pointing out that home health aides, plumbers and police officers all have fraught, respectful conversations as part of the job.
For too long, colleges have treated civics as a dusty obligation — the realm of high-minded debate and principles scribbled on parchment. Too many students think of democratic participation as a special occasion: something for election day or a moment of protest.
Linking civic skills to job skills can make the disciplines of democracy more alive, more relevant, and more common. Students need a concrete way to connect to public life, and tying their civic instincts to their career ambitions can do that. It echoes the founding generation’s belief that democracy must be the workaday culture of American life, not just a grand intellectual commitment. As Alexis de Tocqueville observed in Democracy in America, “True information is mainly derived from experience; and if the Americans had not been gradually accustomed to govern themselves, their book-learning would not assist them much.”
Young People Want Real-World Civic Practice
Years of surveying and working alongside young people at C&S have reinforced the notion that young people need to experience civic life to feel invested in it. Young Americans aren’t cynical about the country’s direction — they’re justifiably worn down by the rancor around them. They haven’t checked out of civic life; they’re hungry for better, more constructive engagement.
Research from C&S finds that 9 in 10 members of Gen Z feel a sense of responsibility to their communities, and nearly 8 in 10 want to have in-person conversations about important issues. Fewer than half, meanwhile, want to comment or get into online debates.
Given the social media environment they’ve experienced growing up, that’s a sign of civic health. They don’t want online commentary and partisan shouting matches. They want real conversations and real-world projects. That’s exactly the kind of experience that colleges and then workplaces are positioned to deliver.
These Skills Will Stay In Demand
No one can confidently predict where the economy will be in four months, let alone four years. The technical skills graduates need will keep shifting as industries rise and fall. But they will still need to listen, judge information, persuade, collaborate, and solve problems with other people.
Those aren’t soft skills. They aren’t just job skills, either. They are the key skills for American life, and they will always be in demand.
