What Are the Big Higher Education Stories for 2024?
DEI is central to the mission of community colleges, but that doesn’t make them immune from current struggles, Director Thomas Brock told Diverse: Issues in Higher Education. Brock also predicted that in 2024, community colleges will continue to work on ensuring access for underrepresented students and will focus on strategies for student success and completion.
Community Colleges Primed For, but Struggling With, Tech Adoption
“Technology adoption is hard to do, especially when you’re underfunded,” Hoori Kalamkarian explained to Inside Higher Ed. “It takes a lot of training time, staff time, getting a buy-in among the staff—and doing that at a community college is especially challenging.”
A State Calculates the Costs of Dual Enrollment
In an article on the costs of dual enrollment in Inside Higher Ed, John Fink noted some of the ways that dual enrollment can pay off for community colleges.
In College Math, Faculty Is Key. But Will This Insight Actually Help Students?
The pool of students who have access to college-level math has broadened, Susan Bickerstaff told EdSurge. A more diverse set of students requires increased support for high-quality teaching, which includes providing faculty with specific examples to guide their implementation of better instructional principles.
Toward a Transfer Guarantee
Interest in guaranteed admission surged after the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ban. “It’s hard to overlook the potential impact of the transfer pool on both enrollment and diversity,” said John Fink. “Now more than ever, guaranteed and dual-admissions plans make a lot of sense.”
The Road to a Bachelor’s Degree: 7 Ways to Strengthen Transfer Pipelines
Many students looking to earn their bachelor's are tripped up by the transfer process, losing credits and taking more courses on average. In a new CCRC report, the authors write that without clear, structured transfer pathways, the community college transfer pathway reinforces existing inequities.
Unlocking Opportunity to Help Focus Students at OC
With the continuing evolution of community colleges, Odessa College has become part of Unlocking Opportunity, a network of 10 two-year colleges partnering with Aspen Institute and CCRC to focus on postgraduate outcomes.
How Community Colleges Are Revamping Their Student Onboarding Process
Institutions are helping learners select programs of study through meta-majors, which Hana Lahr described to Higher Ed Dive as a useful tool to help colleges map their offerings. According to Lahr, incorporating them into other onboarding processes maximizes their utility.
College Transfer Process Is ‘DIY’ for Many Students
John Fink told Inside Higher Ed that the process of transferring is generally an uphill battle: “Sometimes I think about it like a DIY transfer pathway, students are really sort of on their own to figure this out.”
Universities Prepare to Launch 2-Year Colleges
Two four-year universities announced plans to launch two-year colleges on their campuses. Tom Brock responded to these plans in Inside Higher Ed, saying this model could be a “great experience for a small number of students” with valuable ripple effects for them, but “investing in community colleges still needs to be the larger emphasis for public policy."
