At theAACRAO SEM Conference last November, community college leaders joined a panel discussion about the future of community colleges.
Walter Bumphus, American Association of Community Colleges (AACC); William Serrata, El Paso Community College; Karen A. Stout, Achieving the Dream, Inc.; and Chris Whitaker, Humber College, shared perspectives about the sector’s challenges and opportunities, including:
- Accelerating completion rate progress. As the ideas at the center of America’s College Promise continue to catch on and the tuition-free college movement grows, community colleges “will be called upon to do even better around completion,” said Stout, “meaning a degree that leads to transfer or some type of credential that the labor market values.” Completion remains a challenge for the sector, one that the more than 200 colleges involved in Achieving the Dream are working hard to overcome. But progress has been slow going. To make completion a priority, however, community college leaders may have to make big changes involving the reallocation of resources or redesign of institutions around a “pathways” approach.
- Addressing funding constraints with more strategic financing models. With nearly all states (47) spending less on higher education and community colleges than pre-recession, more community colleges are ramping up efforts to get private funding. Stout said the sector needs to think more strategically about building capacity and achieving efficiencies to hold down costs.
- Replenishing the rapidly depleting leadership pipeline. Among the nation’s 1,123 community colleges, 850 have a different president today than in 2011, and 70% of community college presidents expect to retire within 10 years. Moreover, skill sets for community college leadership jobs are changing: in the current funding environment, leaders need to be more adept at fundraising and resource development. The situation calls for investing in executive coaching and leadership development programs, argued Bumphus.
- Creating a college-going culture in a robust economy. When students can earn $12 an hour instead of investing in their future, it’s tempting for many not to go to college, said Serrata, calling that “a huge challenge.” Texas is one state with rising numbers of high school graduates but flat to declining enrollment in community colleges.
- Facilitating credit transfer. The lowest socioeconomic quintile, a group that many community college students fall into, has hardly raised its baccalaureate degree achievement rate in 30 years (from 6.2% holding the degrees in 1970 to 8.3% in 2009). Many community college students want to transfer to four-year institutions to earn a baccalaureate degree, so it is incumbent upon community colleges and university partners to facilitate transitions, said Serrata. Many college employees deny there is a credit transfer problem even while accepting only 30 of transfer students’ 60 credit hours, observed Bumphus.
For more from the 2015 SEM Conference Executive Summary, visit here. Other sessions highlighted in the summaries include:
-Emerging Issues: Becoming as Diverse as Our Students
-Race, Class, and College Access: Achieving Diversity in a Changing Legal Landscape
-A Different World: The Evolving Field of Enrollment Management
-Student Planning: An Important Role in Graduation Initiatives
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