The Edge: Expanding Missions -- and Top Reads of 2022

Community colleges are hardly “two year” anymore. And readers’ favorite newsletters of the year reflect higher ed’s attention on enrollment and online programs. ADVERTISEMENT [The Edge Logo]( Did someone forward you this newsletter? [Sign up free]( to receive your own copy. You can now read The Chronicle on [Flipboard]( and [Google News](. I’m Goldie Blumenstyk, a senior writer at The Chronicle covering innovation in and around higher ed. This week I share my fourth annual look back on your favorite newsletter reads of the year. I also report from events — one where I moderated a panel — focused on community colleges’ expanding mission, and offer some second thoughts on a proposed measure of college value. ADVERTISEMENT SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHRONICLE Enjoying the newsletter? [Subscribe today]( for unlimited access to essential news, analysis, and advice. Community colleges’ expanding missions. “Two-year colleges” is a common but increasingly inadequate label for community colleges. In half of states, the institutions now offer bachelor’s degrees. And they’re stepping up to offer short-term education and training aligned with the job market, separate from programs that lead to associate degrees. Yet in both cases, the obstacles — political, financial, bureaucratic, cultural — are myriad. Several of those obstacles, as well as recent advances, got attention last week from New America, with the release of a series of papers (found [here]( and [here]( on bachelor’s degrees, and [here]( and [here]( on job-aligned programs) and in two hybrid presentations at the policy shop’s D.C. headquarters and online. I attended both events (live!) and moderated one of the panels — for me, a welcome return to the wonky policy briefings that were a pre-pandemic mainstay. I’m hoping 2023 will bring me more chances to share once again dispatches from these outings. Meanwhile, here’s a little of what I heard last week. - In some cases, four-year colleges and policy makers inhibit the expansion of bachelor’s programs at community colleges. But those institutions can tamp down the resistance behind that. For example, when Trinity Valley Community College began offering a bachelor’s in nursing, nearby four-year colleges, in the region southeast of Dallas, raised concerns that the move would intensify the competition for qualified faculty members. Trinity Valley allayed that, said Helen Reid, the provost there, by helping its own graduates earn their doctorates. “We didn’t have to poach,” she said. - In the panel I moderated, New America’s Iris Palmer argued that the federal government could better promote job training at community colleges through reforms to several Department of Labor grant programs, which are designed with built-in reporting requirements on outcomes (versus Pell Grants, which aren’t). But the grants can be tough for community colleges to access, said Jee Hang Lee, president and chief executive of the Association of Community College Trustees. The colleges “have to go fishing” to find them, scattered across programs, he said, and most institutions don’t have the time or resources to do that. - Lee, Palmer, and the third speaker on my panel, Amanda Winters, an adviser on postsecondary and work-force policies for the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, all also stressed the importance of producing better data on job-training programs’ outcomes — and then actually using that information to help students decide which programs to pursue, and to help college officials decide where and how to invest their resources. Too often, data-collection efforts are “more compliance focused than strategy focused,” Winters said. “Data needs to spur change, or it’s useless.” You can watch the discussion on community-college bachelor’s programs [here]( and on job-focused, non-degree programs [here](. And if all that doesn’t sate your appetite for insights on community colleges and the labor market, consider [this report]( published this week on closing gaps in relationships between institutions and employers, from the Managing the Future of Work project at Harvard Business School and the American Association of Community Colleges. [This rundown]( from Community College Daily offers a succinct summary. A reality check on a new proposal to measure college value. Last month I highlighted [a new approach to measure college value]( one that would look at how well institutions are promoting access to higher ed, how student-centered they are, and what community impact they have. I’m still high on the idea, but my enthusiasm was tempered over lunch with a policy expert, who gently pointed out that this admirable approach wasn’t holistic enough. A better measurement, said Josh Wyner, founder and executive director of the College Excellence Program at the Aspen Institute, would look more at outcomes. Like me, Wyner said he loved the idea of measuring community impact, but thought the gauge shouldn’t be programs offered or money spent, but results. Did the offerings lead to better local health? Lower unemployment or higher wages in the region? It’s one thing for a college to say that it’s promoting civic engagement, Wyner noted, but “are they going to measure how many people who graduated, voted?” he asked. He’s right. And his points reminded me of the effort beginning in 2017 by consultants and others to create an accreditation alternative that [would apply auditing principles]( to assess the implicit and explicit promises made by colleges and other education providers. That work [morphed into a project called the Education Quality Outcomes Standards board (EQOS)]( which was [acquired by Jobs for the Future this year](. JFF is more focused on assessing programs outside of traditional higher ed, but the methodology certainly could apply to colleges, if folks get serious about this model. Your favorite newsletter reads of 2022. Issues of The Edge dealing with enrollment, online education, the value of college, and ways to improve student success engaged readers the most in 2022. In a year that saw so many institutions struggling to rebound from the pandemic, I guess that’s not surprising. Maybe even more telling, last week’s newsletter, which homed in on [how enrollment and online ed are connected]( prompted the most interest of any. Many more discussions of enrollment these days (finally!) include adult students, and you don’t have to guess how pleased I was to see that my second-most read newsletter of the year described how [a blanket approach to wooing adults back would be misguided](. Newsletters that highlighted how [shorter semesters and competency-based education were helping some colleges stave off enrollment declines]( and [the impact of employer-paid tuition]( also resonated. The enrollment decline has, of course, fueled continuing concerns about the value of college, and how it’s perceived by current and potential students, as well as the public at large. Readers’ interest in newsletters on [new measures of value]( (the model mentioned above), and on whether changes in the economy and society are setting [a higher bar for higher ed]( reflects those anxieties. Other top reads included [Western Governors University’s 25 years of expansion]( [the growing acceptance of online courses]( using [nudges to improve students’ academic progress]( and one on [a new center dedicated to removing the obstacles to student success](. (Once again thanks to my colleague Josh Hatch, for crunching the data; and while I’m at it, also to Sara Lipka, the editor who keeps me honest week after week.) I was also thrilled to see two other newsletters that ranked high in this admittedly imperfect analysis. One was my recap of The Chronicle’s Shark Tank: Edu Edition at SXSW EDU, featuring [four pitches for ideas to improve education](. We’ll be returning with that program in 2023, and it won’t be long before I’ll be soliciting our next contestants. The other was my last installment following [a consulting project at Fort Lewis College]( Colorado. Covid-19 put a damper on that work, and my ability to cover it on the ground the way I intended. But I’m still weighing a return visit to Durango to see for myself how things turned out, and, hmm, just maybe your interest will help me make my case. This is the last issue of The Edge for 2022. I’m so grateful to all of you for reading — and for keeping me thinking and rethinking with your comments and responses. Keep ‘em coming. Best wishes for a healthy holiday season and a happy new year. The next newsletter will be back in your inbox on January 4. Got a tip you’d like to share or a question you’d like me to answer? Let me know, at goldie@chronicle.com. If you have been forwarded this newsletter and would like to see past issues, [find them here](. To receive your own copy, free, register [here](. If you want to follow me on Twitter, (yeah, for now at least, I’m still there) [@GoldieStandard]( is my handle. Goldie’s Weekly Picks 'A COMPLICATED BALANCING ACT' [Colleges Face More Pressure to Keep Students With Mental-Health Conditions Enrolled]( By Carolyn Kuimelis [STORY IMAGE]( A new lawsuit against Yale University comes amid increased scrutiny of higher-ed policies for leaves of absence. SPONSOR CONTENT | Watermark [Student Retention: More Profitable Than Enrollment?]( 'CONDITIONS WERE INSURMOUNTABLE' [Citing Financial Headwinds and Enrollment Woes, a Small College Says It Will Close]( By Grace Mayer [STORY IMAGE]( Cazenovia College, in New York state, has lost 40 percent of its students and recently defaulted on a $25-million loan. VIDEO [Student Voices on the Value of a Degree]( By Luna Laliberte, Carmen Mendoza, and Michael Theis [STORY IMAGE]( Students at three colleges answered four questions from The Chronicle. 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