What if everything we tell each other – and ourselves – about why we choose college isn’t true?  Is higher education an ideal, a personal goal, or might it be a “job-to-be-done?”

In Choosing College: How to Make Better Learning Decisions Throughout Your Life (Jossey-Bass, 2019), author Michael Horn and his co-author Bob Moesta look at how people make decisions regarding higher education through “Jobs-to-be-Done” theory which interrogates and exposes the real reasons people make personal choices, from buying a milk shake to make life-changing decisions.

Based on this theory, students are not applying to colleges, being selected by them, and choosing where to go, but are rather looking to “hire” higher education as a way to achieve a goal.  This analysis provides important insights, both for college-bound students and their families, but also institutions of higher education, many of which might be tooling themselves to perform the wrong job.