Unprecedented Time for Community
Colleges
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State of the Union Speech
Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence
Proposed $8 billion fund for College to Career
TAA Grants in 2011 and 2012 ($500 million each year)
White House Summit on Community Colleges
Regional Summits on Community Colleges
– Philadelphia, Houston, Indianapolis, and San Diego
• $5 Billion for infrastructure to restore CBJTG
(U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand D-NY)
Unprecedented Times for Community
Colleges (continued)
• 44 states have fewer dollars in higher
education this year than in the previous year
• 17 states have moved toward performance
funding
• Enrollments up 2.4% nationwide
• State support per student down 3.7% in
constant dollars
America’s Community Colleges
Educate
• 46% of all U.S. undergraduates
• 50% of new nurses and the majority of health
care workers
• 80% of credentialed first responders including
firefighters, EMTs, and law enforcement officers
• More than 50% of minority undergraduates
• 57% of adult learners 40 to 65 years of age
American Association of Community Colleges
Community Colleges in the U.S.
Community Colleges Growth by Decade
2012
Total Colleges:
1167
2011
12
2000
49
1990
48
1980
149
1970
497
1960
82
1950
92
1940
58
1930
106
1920
49
1910
25
13.3 Million Total Enrollment
(fall 2010)
Enrolled Part
Time
Noncredit
5 Million
58%
8.3 Million
Credit
42%
Enrolled Full
Time
Source: Preliminary data National Center for Education Statistics, 2010. IPEDS Fall Enrollment Survey (AACC
analysis) and AACC membership database (AACC analysis).
We are educating for careers
that have not been created,
using technology not yet
invented to solve problems
that haven’t been discovered.
“Shift Happens,” YouTube
Setting the Stage
• Community colleges serve as a gateway to
higher education and as a result the middle
class.
– In 2010, enrollment reached 13.3 million students
in credit and non-credit courses.
• Community Colleges enroll almost half of U.S.
undergraduate students
The Challenges
• Student success rates, however, are:
– Unacceptably low,
– Employment preparation is not adequately
connected to job market needs, and
– Handoffs between high schools, community
colleges, and baccalaureate institutions are
frequently dropped.
The Challenges (continued)
• The U.S., formerly the leader, now ranks 16th in the
world in college completion rates for 25-34-year-olds.
• By 2018, nearly 2/3 of all American jobs will require a
postsecondary certificate, associate or baccalaureate
degree.
• By adding 20 million postsecondary-educated workers
over the next 15 years, income inequality will decline,
reversing the decline of the middle class.
AACC’s Three-Phase Approach
• Phase I
– Listening Tour
• Phase II
– Creation in 2011 of the 21st-Century Commission
on the Future of Community Colleges
• Phase III
– Implementation of 21st Century Commission
Recommendations
Phase I – Listening Tour
• More than 1,300 stakeholders
– Students, faculty and staff, administrators, trustees,
state policymakers, college presidents and chancellors
• Visited 13 cities in 10 U.S. regions, Jan – Nov 2011
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13.
Austin, TX
Detroit, MI
Washington, DC
Tallahassee, FL
Jamestown, NC
River Grove, IL
Columbus, OH
New York, NY
Anaheim, CA
Martinez, CA
Des Moines, IA
Harrisburg, PA
Grand Island, NE
Phase II – 21st-Century Commission
• Two-fold mandate:
– Safeguard the fundamental mission of
community colleges; and
– Challenge community colleges to imagine a new
future, while ensuring the success of community
college students, institutions and our nation.
Phase III – Implementation of the
Recommendations
• Steering Committee (overarching group)
– 25 to 30 members
• 9 Work Groups (informs the work of the Steering
Committee)
– 10 to 12 members on each
– Specific charges and tasks to complete
21st
Century
Implementation
Framework
Completion
Commitment
Reimagining
Pathways
Community
College/K-12
Collaboration
Dev Ed
Redesign
Closing the Skills
Gap and
Credentialing
Implementation
Steering Committee
Policy and
Advocacy
Redefining
Institutional Roles
• 1 Steering Committee
• 9 Implementation Teams
Faculty
Engagement and
Leadership
Development
Accountability
Essence of the Commission’s Report
• The American dream is at risk.
• Because a highly educated population is fundamental
to economic growth and a vibrant democracy,
community colleges can help reclaim that dream.
• Stepping up to this challenge will require dramatic
redesign of our institutions, their mission, and most
critically, their students’ educational experiences.
Commission Recommendations
• A call for a new vision for community colleges
grounded in the “Three Rs”:
– Redesign students’ educational experiences;
– Reinvent institutional roles; and
– Reset the system to create incentives for student
and institutional success.
7 recommendations
address the Three Rs
Redesign students’ educational
experiences
Recommendation 1
Increase completion rates of community
college credentials by 50% by 2020, while
preserving access, enhancing quality, and
eradicating attainment gaps.
Implementation Strategies for
Recommendation 1
• Construct coherent, structured pathways to certificate and
degree completion. This strategy should aim to incorporate
high impact, evidence-based educational practices;
integrate student support with instruction; promote
implementation at scale; rigorously evaluate the
effectiveness of programs and services for students; and
courageously end ineffective practices.
Implementation Strategies for
Recommendation 1
• Promote transfer from community colleges to
baccalaureate institutions through state policy stipulating
that students who complete an agreed-upon core of
transfer courses and earn an associate degree may transfer
to junior standing at a public university without loss of
credits.
• Devise strategies to identify students who have earned 30
credit hours at community colleges and to assist them in
earning credentials.
Redesign students’ educational
experiences
Recommendation 2
Dramatically improve college readiness: by
2020, reduce by half the number of students
entering college unprepared for rigorous
college-level work, and double the rate of
students who complete developmental
education.
Implementation Strategies for
Recommendation 2
• Redesign developmental education fundamentally, creating
new evidence-based pathways that accelerate students’
progress toward successful college-level work. Incorporate
design principles emerging from community college
research and practice: acceleration, contextualization,
collaborative learning, and integrated student and
academic support.
• Align explicit expectations defining readiness for collegelevel work with enhanced expectations for high school
graduation, while collaborating in implementation of the
Common Core State Standards.
Implementation Strategies for
Recommendation 2
• Implement large-scale and effective collaborations with K–
12 districts at both leadership and faculty levels, aimed at
developing a college- going culture, building students’
college success skills, and expanding dual/concurrent
enrollment and other strategies for accelerating the
progress of students on the college pathway.
Redesign students’ educational
experiences
Recommendation 3
Close the American skills gap by sharply
focusing career and technical education on
preparing students with the knowledge and
skills required for existing and future jobs in
regional and global economies.
Implementation Strategies for
Recommendation 3
• Ensure students’ opportunities for career advancement and
upward mobility through design of coherent career
pathways leading to “stackable” credentials—multilevel,
industry recognized credentials reflecting attainment of the
knowledge and skills required at different stages of a
career.
Implementation Strategies for
Recommendation 3
• Build community college capacity for accurately identifying
unfilled labor market needs and for ensuring that career
education and training programs are streamlined to
address those high-need areas. Develop technology-based
tools that will help local colleges access available labor
market data to identify and monitor skills gaps in their
regions.
Implementation Strategies for
Recommendation 3
• Mobilize powerful local, regional, and national
partnerships (involving community colleges,
employers, and government agencies) to accomplish a
collaborative agenda that
– Ensures that program planning targets skills gaps.
– Promotes the associate degree as a desired employment
credential.
– Establishes alternative models for completing skills-based
credentials, including classroom instruction, online
learning, credit for prior learning, and on-the-job learning.
– Develops a national credentialing system.
Reinvent institutional roles
Recommendation 4
Refocus the community college mission and
redefine institutional roles to meet 21stcentury education and employment needs.
Implementation Strategies for
Recommendation 4
• Ensure that students can learn what they need to learn,
when and how they need to learn it, by shifting community
colleges from playing the restricted role of local provider of
direct instructional services to an expanded role as broker
of educational access, connecting students to learning
opportunities available through multiple providers and
multiple modes of delivery. Of necessity in an increasingly
open learning environment, the brokering role will require
expanding community college work in academic advising,
learning assessment, and credentialing.
Implementation Strategies for
Recommendation 4
• Establish venues and protocols for engaging governing
boards, college presidents, faculty leaders, and partners in
necessary discussions and decisions about hard choices:
Whom will this college serve? In what ways? Seeking what
outcomes? And to what and whom will we say “no”?
Reinvent institutional roles
Recommendation 5
Invest in support structures to serve multiple
community colleges through collaboration
among institutions and with partners in
philanthropy, government, and the private
sector.
Implementation Strategies for
Recommendation 5
• Create partnerships or consortia for the development and
support of student data systems, data analytics,
educational diagnostics, learning management systems,
institutional research, and professional development.
• Implement programs (in individual community colleges,
systems, and states) to strengthen credentialing through
rigorous assessment and transparent documentation of the
knowledge and skills of students.
Reset the system
Recommendation 6
Target public and private investments
strategically to create new incentives for
institutions of education and their students
and to support community college efforts to
reclaim the American Dream.
Implementation Strategies for
Recommendation 6
• Advocate at the local, state, and national levels for renewed
public investment in the public good—the development of
the nation’s people—as necessary both to economic
competitiveness and a vibrant democracy.
• Incorporate incentives for student performance and
progress into student financial aid programs at the federal,
state, and local levels, while also elevating the priority of
need-based aid.
Implementation Strategies for
Recommendation 6
• Implement funding strategies that put money toward
providing incentives and support for collaborative work
across educational sectors (preK–12, community college,
and university) to facilitate student transitions and
accelerate their educational progress.
• Develop public funding models that include provisions for
making student success and college completion matter,
incorporating incentives for community colleges to
preserve access and continue serving high-risk and
traditionally underserved students.
Implementation Strategies for
Recommendation 6
• Create accessible and interactive statewide data systems,
learning analytics, and other tools essential to the capacity
of community colleges to monitor student progress,
institutional performance, and changes in community and
labor force needs.
Reset the system
Recommendation 7
Implement policies and practices that
promote rigor, transparency, and
accountability for results in community
colleges.
Implementation Strategies for
Recommendation 7
• Ensure that credentials represent real knowledge and skills
by implementing the Degree Qualifications Profile as a
framework for learning outcomes assessment and quality
assurance in community colleges.
• Leverage the influence and collective purchasing power of
community colleges to press for development of learning
outcomes assessments that meet community college
specifications for modular, course-embedded assessments
(e.g., writing, quantitative reasoning, technological literacy)
that are tied to the Degree Qualifications Profile.
Implementation Strategies for
Recommendation 7
• Implement state data systems that permit colleges to track
students on their educational and career pathways. By
following students into higher education and the
workforce, education leaders can demonstrate the
employment- and wage-related impacts of a community
college education. Simultaneously they should work with
states, funders, and national associations to develop a
concise set of indicators of student progress and success.
• Implement the Voluntary Framework of Accountability
nationwide, while also developing strengthened
approaches to measuring student learning and
employment related outcomes.
Next Steps
• Commission members are traveling across the
country to discuss the report and its
recommendations
• AACC will:
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–
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Widely disseminate the report
Establish an Implementation Task Force
Create an AACC 21st-Century Center
Conduct proactive outreach by AACC and Commission
members
Walter G. Bumphus, Ph.D.
President and CEO
American Association of Community Colleges
One Dupont Circle, NW, Suite 410
Washington, DC 20036
202.728.0200, Ext. 235
wbumphus@aacc.nche.edu
http://www.aacc.nche.edu