Evolving into the Transitional College: The Necessity and Benefits of Change

The total impact of Covid-19 on the future of individual institutions will not be felt immediately. As with other financial hardships in the past, the dominos have begun to fall, and it will take several years to fully realize the impact. With growing concerns over the fidelity of the institutions, this newest set of economic circumstances provides an opportunity to reimagine who these institutions serve and what roles they can play in the future.

Smaller institutions play a vital role for students seeking an in-person postsecondary experience and for local communities who benefit from these institutions as both employers and cultural centers. Students need to be served where they are and communities need educational and cultural resources that extend beyond the K-12 level. Swaths of public and private institutions cannot be allowed to fail only to increase our nation’s educational deserts, nor can we help promote that their current form is sustainable.

Pre-pandemic challenges still exist for the surplus of four-year public and private institutions serving regions that have seen significant population loss. These institutions continue to struggle year-to-year as their physical and human resource footprint has not changed to reflect the current enrollment. As enrollments have declined the academic offerings and the faculty who teach them remain intact, causing modest salaries and the rising costs of fringe benefits to seem disproportionate to actual teaching loads. The same principle applies to the physical plant, where acres of land and thousands of square feet of buildings must be maintained as utility costs continue the rise while the number of students per square foot decrease. These challenges are compounded by the fact that these institutions cannot raise additional capital from tuition as public institutions face agency and legislative scrutiny for large increases and private institutions have deeply discounted their price to a point that they have little room to maneuver.

I would argue that we need to use this moment to marshal expertise and resources to enable these institutions to evolve once again. With apologies to Lucas, Rudolph and Thelin the Reader’s Digest condensed history of this subject is this: many of these institutions evolved from local normal schools and seminaries, transitioning to junior colleges and eventually colleges and universities. Everyone wanted the mission creep, having a four-year college or university was a point of pride and a great resource for communities at their peak. But eventually the railroad was discontinued, the interstate made the local highway obsolete, the mine closed, the plant relocated taking families with it… the reasons are many, the institution size and scope remained the same and sometimes grew in an effort to compete in the region.

Perhaps it would be easier to let these institutions slip into history. Modernity has enabled us to move on as one business or public good is replaced by another. The main street hardware shop was made obsolete by the big box store on the bypass which is gradually giving way to online shopping and delivery. So why can’t a college be like a hardware store, surely virtual instruction from a far-off provider can replace traditional local instruction? If anything, the pandemic has taught us the opposite, students are overwhelmingly choosing to return to campus when they have an option despite the risks. There is a yearning to learn and be part of a community with others that surpasses the commodities of a given store. For the local community these institutions also serve the role as a major employer, a center for cultural enrichment and a means to attract new employers and residents to the area.

We need institutions to serve students where they live and to help support their local communities. We need these institutions to be places where students thrive academically and grow holistically. We also need another viable postsecondary choice for students that exists on a plane somewhere in between the utilitarian nature of the community and technical college and ivy clad resolve of four-year institutions despite their level of selectivity.

To that end, I would suggest that many of these institutions would benefit from evolving to a transitional college. This model would resemble a residential junior college structure focused on student preparation and success for transfer, with a limited number of bachelor degree offerings that are tied to workforce needs within the surrounding region. This change would allow institutions to develop a more sustainable campus footprint while supporting the local community and its most vulnerable students. The refocused academic mission would also mean a renewed emphasis on serving the least prepared students striving to obtain a degree. In addition, this move would serve these top-of-mind purposes:

• A total “remodel” of the curriculum: This would allow for the development of several clear-cut academic pathways to a select number of remaining majors. This improved transparency would reinforce the renewed preparatory and support nature of the institution. This would not only improve transparency for students, but also lead to improved transfer agreements with other regional colleges returning greater public value for remaining postsecondary funding.
• A clean slate: This would also enable a more immediate enactment of a host of initiatives proven, as mentioned in Bruce Vandal’s latest UntappeED Potential blog, to support student academic success and well-being. Corequisite developmental education, meta majors, intrusive advising, non-academic transcripts, and cohorting to name a few could be scaled with the new curriculum and pathways implementation. Enacting these changes within in four-year institutions has proven to be a hard-fought slog by champions and leadership taking years to realize one or two initiatives.
• A reduced scale of mission: This means that the oldest and most expensive facilities to operate could be razed or repurposed. This would help eliminate compounding deferred maintenance costs and provide the opportunity to bring in some additional revenue by allowing other institutional partners to offer courses onsite that are no longer part of the curriculum.
• A “storefront” model: While moving away from the costly burden of the current curricular and co-curricular footprint, transitional colleges could provide a vital location to host programs and services from other partner institutions. This could maintain or even expand opportunities for the community that did not exist with the prior four-year institution. There are also opportunities to develop stronger ties with local K-12 systems to provide additional capacity and instruction as they also struggle to provide a curriculum that serves the spectrum of local students needs. These partnerships could create pathways that extend from high school into the workforce.

The educational community spends significant time and resources trying to maintain our traditional and current forms of postsecondary delivery, while striving to install proven student success strategies on same reluctant modes of service. It’s time to think of a new viable path forward that serves the best interests of both the student and community. In the next blog I’ll address a question you’re probably already asking yourself: “Doesn’t the community and technical college already do this?”