The Unexpected Wave: Addressing the Needs of a New Cohort of Students
By Andréa Rodriguez, Director, Coalition of Urban Serving Universities, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities and Lara Couturier, principal, HCM Strategists.
COVID-19 and the social outrage against systemic racism both serve as inflection points for higher education. From its earliest days, the pandemic produced gravely inequitable outcomes in areas such as health, employment and education. Consider the data showing who changed education plans in the pandemic’s wake: 27% of Black Americans, 29% of Latino Americans and 15% of White Americans.
As more Americans find their lives and educational plans disrupted, and as demands for systemic change resound, many will watch higher education leaders’ response. Will they embrace this moment to inform systemic redesign and increase equitable student outcomes in higher education? More than ever, institutions must reflect and pivot toward reinventing policies and practices that increase their ability to provide new and equitable learning structures. Of key importance, those new, equitable learning structures must be designed to ensure that credits earned are applied and count toward a students’ degree completion. All too often, new learning paths are deemed “alternative” and treated as add-ons or elective credit, not moving students toward graduation.
Most students pursue a higher education degree to earn a good job, but the romanticized pathway –graduate from high school, attend a 2-year or 4-year college and land a job — was no longer the norm even before the outbreak of COVID-19.[1] Now, student surveys show that already-enrolled students are choosing to attend different institutions in the fall that are closer to home, or offer lower tuition. Students have moved to remote and online learning, accelerating a mindset shift about what it truly means to learn in a virtual setting. Credential Engine has documented that there are now over 700,000 unique credential programs in the U.S., including almost 200,000 digital badges.[2] In this time of heightened change, the traditional pathway will become even more outdated. Leaders are now faced with the challenge of meeting the needs of a new cohort of students who will demand appropriate responses to the pandemic and the systems that have created and sustained centuries of racism.
Some institutions are already responding. The Coalition of Urban Serving Universities (USU) partnered with the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) in 2010 to establish the USU/APLU Office of Urban Initiatives to jointly lead an urban plan for the nation’s public research universities. USU advances the notion of the urban ecosystem where everyone plays a role in the improvement and the good of the community. Its member institutions have been innovating with new credentials and responsive pathways, accelerating their work to ensure students are prepared to navigate the world in 2020. By creating responsive learning pathways, the below institutions have started to prepare for the new cohort of students:
● University of Memphis, Global (UofM Global) partnered with FedEx to respond to the skills gap by creating educational pathways for its employees designed to enhance job opportunities, offer lifelong learning, and leverage employee benefits for tuition. To respond to the demands of the employee’s work schedules, UofM Global designed a flexible curriculum that is made available online with a robust support structure to ensure all students can be successful.[3]
● University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UW-Milwaukee) is part of an ongoing project called the All Learning Counts Partnership to increase opportunities for current and prospective students to earn a degree through adult-learning programs. The project helps to decrease cost and time to degree for students who are awarded credit for prior learning. UW-Milwaukee’s School of Continuing Education will review and align learning outcomes in non-credit certificate programs with for-credit courses to ensure maximum applicability towards a degree program. The credit for prior learning strategy will support and guide students through the degree-completion journey, with a focus on achieving equitable outcomes for adult learners and underrepresented students of color.[4]
● Florida International University’s (FIU) new micro-credentialing initiative is providing the community with new learning pathways through continuing education. FIU designed an Initiative badge and a Fundamentals of Financial Literacy badge to add supplemental, valuable experience for students engaged in remote learning. Another example is Cyber-CAP, a cyber apprenticeship program designed to translate into credits and aimed at providing technical skills, on-the-job-training, support, and preparation to earn industry credentials. The goal of the program is to graduate students with interconnected skills and credentials to work in the cybersecurity field.[5] Micro-credentials are new routes to education designed to extend beyond the students’ baccalaureate degree experience.[6]
The efforts of these USU institutions are laudable. These responsive, unconventional learning avenues are meaningful and high-quality. They will enable students to contribute to the workforce, improve societal conditions and provide for themselves and their families. The USU institutions are showing leadership and responding to student demands in a time of unprecedented change.
Yet the impact of their innovation will be limited if the rest of higher education siloes their work as “non-traditional pathways.” These leading institutions are serving today’s students, and serving them well. What we sorely need is an improved understanding of how students learn today. It is time to promote a culture that recognizes when and how students learn high-quality, valuable knowledge and skills at work, online, through badging and at other institutions. Those supporting the learning experience need to collaborate as a connected community, helping students master the competencies they need to fulfill their personal and career potential. Only then will we have a postsecondary ecosystem that is able to serve today’s students.
This blog is part of Project APPLY — A series by HCM Strategists and Kinetic Seeds to enliven a national conversation about how today’s students and workers experience learning after high school.
[1] https://www.vistacollege.edu/blog/resources/higher-education-in-the-21st-century/
[2] https://credentialengine.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Counting-US-Postsecondary-and-Secondary-Credentials_190925_FINAL.pdf
[3] https://evolllution.com/attracting-students/enrollment_strategies/from-dream-to-life-how-the-university-of-memphis-forged-a-learning-partnership-with-fedex/
[4] https://diversity.wisc.edu/2020/01/uw-system-expands-opportunities-for-adult-learners/
[5] https://news.fiu.edu/2019/fiu-launches-cybersecurity-apprenticeship-program
[6] https://news.fiu.edu/2020/virtual-fly-in-and-badge-connects-students-to-global-policymakers,-employers
