On December 1st, CCA convened representatives from its Alliance teams and various institutional and organizational leaders in the region. In addition to a panel of experts that addressed key topics in the region, CCA held breakout sessions where attendees had an opportunity to identify higher education priorities to address COVID-19, economic downturn, and inequitable outcomes for our students. The event was co-facilitated with our colleagues from CollaborativeLabs.
Top 2 Prioritized Areas of Focus, within College Completion, for the Alliance & Region
- Addressing equity gaps through financial incentives, better data usage, structure and purpose, and faculty involvement.
- Don’t miss the moment- don’t return to status quo All targets- disaggregation by race, not only focus on enrollment, revitalize things that were underway to meet the moment. Need escalation of reform and too keep up pace of change brought on by Covid-19.
Additional Areas of Focus for the Alliance & Region
- Debt (too much debt to enroll or concerns about adding more debt)
- Cost of recruiting new students, grow focus on serving underrepresented students, cost less to keep them instead of having a revolving door, to legislators and state government
- Support services seen as a drain- the idea- if we provide services we are retaining a student Development programs offered for free- support to equity and retention
- Better funding from federal government and states
- Federal financial aid (conversation at national level)
- Double down on closing equity gaps (free college, guided pathways, intrusive advising, better data usage)
- Financial incentives to attend college/recertification/training
- Affordability of higher education
- Shift priorities to students who are not easy to graduate. Financial impacts and where to put your resources. Go with easy bet or reasonable bet.
- Don’t settle academic readiness or background
- Not trying to go after the same students but students who are not aspiring to anything
- Not business as usual – staying out of comfort zone- provide opportunity to the breadth of the population for transformation
- Need escalation of reform and too keep up pace of change brought on by Covid-19
- Creating efficiency measures per student per enrollee
- Federal financial aid (conversation at national level)
- Access AND Student Success Issue
- Cost of Attendance (moving away from only talking about tuition & fees)
- Changing structures (ex. Changing times and days classes are offered)
- Shift conversation to understanding costs of public education
- Continuing online & flexible learning (ex. Pedagogy, tech, etc.)
- Adult Learners – costs, tech, etc.
- Dual enrollment increase
- Language shift (ex. stop using “gaps”)
- K12 and Higher Ed Partnership (ex. Downfall of Standardized testing)
- Move away from No Child Left Behind
- Highlight purpose and importance of higher education
- Faculty involvement and engagement (not just administration/staff) in college completion and retention (communication, information, training, data sharing, sharing best practices)
- Internships and other connections/partnerships with workforce
- Accommodate real life of our students
