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As 2021 comes to a close, I’ve been thinking about the role of formal education in the growth of the freelance revolution. Two recent articles helped me identify what I see as a gap in how our universities prepare interested professionals for freelance career success. Why don’t universities offer a specific, formal, curriculum geared to helping students succeed as full- or part-time freelancers.
The first was an interesting article by Dean Santiago Iniguez of IE University. Iniguez is an innovator in business education and, in his brief essay, he makes several suggestions about how education must innovate in response to cultural, economic and technological change. He sees change in particular in three areas: hybrid learning, applied learning, and blending the humanities, STEM and data sciences. But, the freelancing trend isn’t mentioned.
The second article was Princeton Review’s celebration of the winners of the 15th annual survey of the top schools for entrepreneurship studies, which includes over 300 US based programs offering degrees in entrepreneurship. According to Entrepreneur reporting the survey, “The pandemic has triggered a massive wave of entrepreneurial interest, and more Americans are starting businesses now than in the last decade ... That means there's even more hunger for valuable information and insights on how to build and grow a business.”
Both articles lead me to a modest proposal: with millions of professionals choosing to freelance on a part- or full-time basis, in a very fast growing range of professionals, we need a formal curriculum that enables future independent professionals to kickstart their freelance career with greater awareness, knowledge, skill, and confidence.
Formal education can play an important role in driving the freelance revolution.
We know freelancing is on the rise. Upwork recently estimated 60 million part- and full-time freelancers in the US alone, and McKinsey cited the global potential much higher in their focus on the economic value of freelance platforms. As McKinsey put it, by 2025, “The actual number of individuals who stand to gain (from freelance platforms) is much larger. In total, some 540 million people—a number equivalent to the entire population of the European Union—could find employment, increase the number of hours they work, or find jobs that are a better fit. Beyond their impact on individuals and the broader economy, talent platforms can help companies transform the way they hire, train, and manage their employees.”
We also know that many freelance platforms and communities - Toptal, Hoxby, Omdena.com, Worksome, Talmix, Fiverr, Freelancer.com, Upwork, freelancebusiness.eu, Gebeya, Comatch.com, Seeds, Adevait.com, itarmi.com and others offer active programs of both professional and technical continuing education for their freelancers. But, preparatory formal education is behind the curve on recognizing freelancing as an important alternative professional career path.
Up to this time, formal education at the university level has had just two professional career tracks legitimized and supported through university curriculum: entrepreneurs and career employees. That’s old economy thinking that we need to change.
Freelancing is a third career track that is being chosen by more and more professionals. And, freelancers are increasingly happy with their choice. In our Global Survey on Freelancing, over 60% of the 1900 freelancers in our survey, representing over 30 countries, described themselves as having sufficient or too much work, and were confident they would meet their financial goals. Moreover, a slightly larger percentage described themselves as committed to freelancing.
To be clear, freelancing isn’t itself a career. It’s the method one takes to a professional career. Unlike ‘gigsters’ who are combining multiple non-professional tasks to earn a living, freelancers are generally educated, qualified and experienced professionals who choose to ply their profession as an independent solopreneur. And, we know from recent research that the numbers of individuals who are interested in freelancing part- or full-time is growing significantly.
Surprisingly, looking through both undergraduate and graduate entrepreneur curricula, there’s virtually no mention of the kinds of courses that a solopreneur – and any professional, freelance oriented or not - might find helpful:
- Creating a personal brand and strategy
- Managing finances in a small independent business
- Working well with others
- Project management
- Maintaining my expertise; future-proofing my expertise
- Marketing and selling your products or services
- Attracting, retaining and working effectively with customers
- Building my professional skills
- Keeping up with what’s happening in my profession
On the online side, schools like the Harvard Business School offer a number of interesting programs for would-be or current entrepreneurs, courses like “entrepreneurial essentials” that offer a “proven framework for building and financing new ventures, and make your entrepreneurial dreams a reality.” Or “negotiation mastery” offering students the knowledge to “secure maximum value for your organization through a mastery of negotiation techniques.” Interesting and exciting, and useful, but not tuned to the specific needs of the solopreneur.
Some disruptive educators see the opportunity and importance of serving this large and unserved constituency. Jolt.io, for example, is an EdTech startup that provides an extensive curriculum on how to freelance taught by professionals who are themselves full-time freelancers. Udacity has also been an important innovator, developing and offering educational programs to support freelancing. Parkerdewey.com provides undergraduate students with what CEO Jeffrey Moss calls “micro-internships.” Online Freelancing School is another helpful provider. We are also seeing innovative freelance educational programs at US community colleges like Santa Anna College in California offering helpful and practical courses in their continuing education track like “Survival finance and accounting for the freelancer – show me the money” and “People skills for the freelancer”.
But, while these organizations are helpful and raise the flag, it’s not enough. Until more traditional educational institutions explicitly support freelancing as a legitimate and important career venue, it will be tough to reach escape velocity in the freelance revolution. Estimates are that 75% of current freelancers in developed countries are part-time or side-giggers. That’s not enough to adequately fuel the rise of freelancing at a scale necessary to fulfill its enterprise potential. And, with over 90% of corporates saying they will continue to use and increase their dependence on freelancers, the importance of formal educational focus is increasing.
There’s obvious value in entrepreneur programs. As the Princeton Review article pointed out, programs like the undergraduate program at BYU have led to graduates raising over $14 billion for their new businesses. On the graduate school side, Rice University graduates have raised more than $5.5 billion in funding for their companies in just the last ten years.
But, while impressive, the growth of freelancing, and the economic value it is creating, is equally worthy of greater educational attention.
So, university and business school educators world-wide, are you ready to support this third path in business and professional education? Which innovative colleges or universities will be among the first to create a solopreneur track?
Viva la revolution!
