Building Cross-sector Pathways: The Community College Research Center recently released a report about how community colleges can better serve learners and employers and build on guided pathways – a whole-college reform model that integrates program mapping, intensive onboarding and advising, and experiential learning – through cross-sector pathways. The goal of cross-sector pathways is to improve economic mobility for underrepresented students and to meet local workforce needs by strengthening connections within the community college and with K-12 schools, four-year universities and business and industry. Based on a study of four community colleges, the report outlines practices community colleges can implement within the following systems to establish cross-sector pathways:
- K-12 Schools: Conduct outreach to under-resourced schools to help them build a college-going mindset and to provide college and career exploration and planning support, and redesign dual enrollment and CTE courses to better facilitate student transition into postsecondary.
- Community Colleges: Implement meta-majors aligned with regional career and continuing education opportunities and leverage these meta-majors to organize new student onboarding, advising and networking opportunities and to create academic and career communities.
- Four-year Institutions: Partner to create major-specific transfer guidelines, jointly enroll students and guarantee transfer with junior standing in a major, and provide transfer students with field-specific academic support as well as financial and nonacademic support.
- Workforce: Build relationships with employers to establish industry advisory groups by meta-major, gain knowledge about in-demand jobs and implement work-based learning experiences.
Partnering with Intermediaries: Chiefs for Change recently released a brief describing state and local intermediaries’ important role in developing education-to-workforce pathways. Due to their connections to multiple institutions, intermediaries such as workforce development boards, postsecondary institutions, and nonprofit and community organizations can help support wide-reaching pathways. The brief outlines the following recommendations for policymakers and leaders to expand the use of intermediaries:
- Promote policies that support the role of intermediaries and create guidelines for partnering with intermediaries, including defining roles, responsibilities and shared goals.
- Identify existing or proposed legislation that supports (or hinders) intermediaries and funding opportunities across partner agencies.
- Create program-quality indicators for intermediaries based on state reporting metrics, such as K-12 postsecondary and career readiness priorities.
- Establish regular check-ins with intermediaries to evaluate their impact and determine adjustments needed to better support shared goals.
Chiefs for Change also published a brief with recommendations for establishing a state governance structure, such as a cabinet, to work toward a shared state goal for education-to-workforce outcomes like a statewide quality credential attainment goal.
Improving Transfer for Rural Students: A report by the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program, HCM Strategists and Sova highlights how, too often, rural students must leave their communities when transferring from a community college to a four-year institution. This results in lower transfer rates or students leaving their communities permanently, hurting the local workforce. To solve this issue, the report highlights the following three transfer pathways community colleges can jointly implement with four-year institutions to respond to local workforce needs while providing continuing education:
- On-site Pathways: Four-year institutions deliver program coursework at community colleges through on-site faculty or the community college’s faculty.
- Locally Assisted Online Pathways: Community colleges partner with four-year institutions that offer online programs aligned with local workforce needs. While students transfer to online university programs, they can still access community college resources.
- Return Migration Pathways: Students begin at a community college and transfer to a four-year institution with programs that respond to rural workforce needs, including collaborating with local employers for work-based learning experiences in students’ home communities.
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