By Quintina Barnett Gallion, Associate Executive Director, Strategy and Planning, AACRAO
Careers in higher education administration are often discovered by accident. Many professionals enter the field through winding paths—starting in admissions, financial aid, the registrar’s office, or business operations—without a clear picture of how their skills translate across roles or how advancement happens over time. For students, awareness of these career pathways is even more limited, despite the critical role these professionals play in ensuring access, equity, and student success.
A new cross-association initiative aims to change that.
In fall 2025, four national higher education associations—AACRAO, NACAC, NASFAA, and NACUBO—launched the Higher Ed Career Competencies Collaboration, an 18-month effort to clarify, align, and elevate career pathways across core functional areas of higher education administration.
Why This Collaboration and Why Now?
Across admissions, financial aid, business operations, and registrar/enrollment management, institutions rely on professionals who combine technical expertise with judgment, ethics, communication skills, and a deep understanding of systems. Yet the field lacks a shared, visible framework that answers some fundamental questions:
What competencies matter at different stages of a higher education career?
How do skills developed in one functional area translate to others?
What does leadership readiness actually look like across roles?
How can institutions better support succession planning and professional growth?
How do we introduce students to these careers as intentional choices—not fallback options?
The Higher Ed Career Competencies Collaboration was formed to address these questions collectively rather than in isolation.
What the Higher Ed Career Competencies Collaboration Will Do
From November 2025 through May 2027, representatives from AACRAO, NACAC, NASFAA, and NACUBO will work together to develop a shared professional competencies framework that supports both:
Advancement of current professionals.
AND
Entry and exploration for college students interested in careers in higher education.
The Collaboration will meet monthly, convene at least once in person, and provide regular progress updates to association leadership. While the work will be deliberate and structured, its focus is practical: creating tools, language, and resources that professionals and institutions can actually use.
Planned outcomes include:
A jointly endorsed competencies framework applicable across functional areas.
At least one career pathways guide for professionals and students.
Joint professional development sessions at each association’s annual conference.
Mentorship, internship, or shadowing opportunities connecting students with experienced professionals.
Broad participation in career advancement and exploration programming following the Collaboration’s conclusion.
What the Higher Ed Career Competencies Collaboration Means for AACRAO Members
For AACRAO members, this initiative reinforces something many already experience firsthand: the registrar and enrollment management profession sits at the crossroads of policy, systems, learner experience, and institutional integrity. Skills developed in AACRAO-aligned roles—such as records management, transfer evaluation, policy interpretation, data stewardship, and cross-functional collaboration—are not niche skills. They are foundational competencies across higher education administration.
The Collaboration creates an opportunity to:
Make those competencies more visible and portable.
Support professionals in articulating their readiness for advancement.
Help institutions design more intentional career pathways and leadership pipelines.
Equip members with shared language they can use in mentoring, supervision, and talent development.
Just as importantly, it provides a platform to help students see higher education administration as meaningful, mission-driven work with real impact on learners’ lives.
A Cross-Association Approach to Professional Growth
One of the Collaboration’s defining features is its cross-association structure. Rather than developing parallel frameworks within each organization, the partners are working toward a unified approach—recognizing that modern higher education requires collaboration across offices and disciplines.
This alignment matters. When competencies are shared, professionals gain flexibility, institutions gain resilience, and the field gains a stronger talent pipeline.
Stay Updated on Developing Information
The Higher Ed Career Competencies Collaboration is not about prescribing a single career path. It is about making pathways clearer, more equitable, and more intentional—whether someone is a new professional, a mid-career manager, or a student just beginning to imagine their future.
AACRAO Connect will continue to share insights from this work as it develops, including reflections on how competencies show up in admissions operations, registrar, and enrollment management roles, and how members can engage with emerging resources.
Careers in higher education should not depend on chance. This Collaboration is a step toward making professional growth in our field more visible, navigable, and sustainable for today’s professionals and tomorrow’s leaders.
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