The international outpouring of help for Haiti has been heartening. Millions have been raised through text message donations alone. The national response on the college and university level has also been great.

The University of Miami began sending medical professionals to Haiti the day after the earthquake and has sent several flights each day back and forth, transporting doctors and supplies to Port-au-Prince and bringing severely injured patients to Miami hospitals.

Many other universities have also pulled together sizable sums of money and offered their services and time. This kind of unity in times of severe need is encouraging not only because it cuts to the core of humanity, but also because it shows how quickly things can get done in the wake of a terrible calamity and in the name of a grave cause.

“We have lost everything,” said Haitian survivor Andres Rosario a few days after the quake. “We are waiting for death.”

Necessity and empathy are powerful drivers. Often they lead to unique reflections, and hopefully they bring us closer to what is most important. On a national level, creating a more robust and capable workforce is a fundamental step towards economic growth.

But where do we begin? Many would point towards education. The Association of American Colleges and Universities recently surveyed over 300 private sector executives and nonprofit employers who said that colleges and universities need to better prepare students to be workers, calling for broader skill sets and higher levels of knowledge.

“It is time for us to match our ambitious goals for college attainment with an equally ambitious and well-informed understanding of what it means to be well-prepared,” Carol Geary Schneider, the association’s president, remarked. “Quality has to become the centerpiece of this nation’s postsecondary education.”

Given the current recession, the high unemployment rate and growing concerns about tuition rates, is not the need for higher learning to better align with workplace expectations also paramount and pressing?