Community colleges, which have endured a decade-long decline in enrollment, are entering a period of rapid and unavoidable change. A new report, Resilient by Design, authored by NCHEMS and recently released by the American Association of Community Colleges, identifies the external pressures that will force significant changes in how community colleges operate. These shifts will impact the students they serve, the intensity of competition from other education providers they will face, and the academic programs and support services they offer. In response, community colleges will have to transform in ways that encompass the integration of new technologies, the reimagination of how programs and services are delivered, the configuration of programs to be increasingly aligned to workforce demand, and the reinvention of business models to ensure financial viability. Colleges are also likely to be subject to new and more intense levels of oversight and accountability.
The report is accompanied by guides designed to help college leaders engage campus communities in meaningful discussions aimed at spurring an effective response to these challenges. In commissioning the report, AACC’s Board encouraged NCHEMS to craft a call to action by synthesizing the myriad challenges the future holds for the sector. The goal was to drive a sense of urgency among AACC’s members and within the Association to develop and implement the changes that will be necessary for ensuring that community colleges remain a vital engine of economic mobility and civic health in the decades to come.
It is difficult to overstate the need for deliberate action that college leaders must communicate to their campus community. The challenges facing community colleges threaten not only their traditional ways of doing business but, in some cases, their very existence. Colleges will not have the luxury of relying on normal processes for dealing with strategic issues. Engaging in broad consultations with stakeholders remains essential, but discussions and ensuing decisions must be more data-informed and rapidly responsive than ever before. Given the pace of change, key issues will have to be addressed simultaneously, not sequentially.
At the same time, we also encourage college leaders to maintain a focus on the long game. After all, the challenges that will force a reckoning for many community colleges did not just appear overnight. Rather, they are the product of observable trends going back many years, as well as new realities about shifts in the economy’s demand for talent and in the application of rapidly evolving technology to curriculum and college operations. At a time when colleges are inundated with a flood of issues emanating from the federal government, it is very easy to become so absorbed in reacting to the current climate of uncertainty and steady controversy that attention to the more fundamental challenges facing colleges of enrollment demand and relevance gets relegated to the back burner. If colleges devote too much attention to short-term crises and controversies that they neglect planning for the long term, it will almost certainly lead to outcomes that no one wants to see.
The future described in Resilient by Design may seem daunting, but it also offers an opportunity. It’s a chance for community colleges to prove once again their uncommon ability to adapt to the needs of the students and communities they serve. The colleges and their leadership teams that embrace the opportunity to reconsider how they will face these challenges will be the ones that build on that legacy. Yet doing so will require new kinds of leadership skills. Few sitting college presidents (or Board members) have fully honed the skillset necessary for leading their institutions through the unprecedented scale or speed of change now facing the sector. That’s why we encourage campus leadership teams to use Resilient by Design and its accompanying guides to prompt foresighted, meaningful dialogue and substantive change that ensures the community college sector continues to thrive. Colleges would be wise not only to utilize these guides but also to seek out supporting professional development opportunities from AACC or other organizations equipped with the necessary expertise to be helpful. NCHEMS is one of those organizations and stands ready to help states, systems, and institutions take on this critical work.
The coming decades will test community colleges — but it will also showcase their resilience. With foresight, data-driven decision-making, and bold leadership, these institutions can continue to be the bedrock of opportunity in American higher education.
