Unlocking Opportunity

The Aspen Institute College Excellence Program (Aspen) and its partners at the Community College Research Center (CCRC) are engaged in a first-of-its-kind initiative that reflects the next wave of community college student success reforms: a focus on post-completion outcomes. Colleges selected for the network work closely with Aspen, CCRC, expert coaches, and field experts over multiple years on comprehensive reforms with one overarching goal: substantially increasing the number of community college students entering and completing programs that lead directly to jobs that pay a sustaining wage or to completion of a bachelor’s degree.

The network engages college leaders and teams in intensive data analysis, including setting a living wage and program classification, as well as identifying strategy areas with aligned quantitative goals. Colleges will be invited to engage in additional opportunities for support developing strategy plans and during college implementation based on institutional needs and progress in the network.

This project is made possible by support from: Arnold Ventures, Ascendium, Bank of America, ECMC Foundation, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Strada Education Foundation, and Tepper Foundation.

The 10 colleges engaged in the Unlocking Opportunity network pilot (2023 - 2025) are:

• Alamo Colleges District
• Laramie County Community College
• Lorain County Community College
• Monroe Community College
• Odessa College
• Sinclair Community College
• Southwest Wisconsin Technical College
• St. Petersburg College
• Tulsa Community College
• Valencia College

This program classification guidebook and accompanying data analysis and visualization tools are available for community colleges seeking to (1) increase the number of students in high-value programs that lead directly to a well-paid job or to transfer and a bachelor’s degree and (2) decrease the number of students in lower-value pathways that are unlikely to prepare them for good jobs or further education at the bachelor’s level. These resources were developed by the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program (Aspen) and the Community College Research Center (CCRC) during their work with the ten Unlocking Opportunity network colleges, and are made possible thanks to generous support from Arnold Ventures, Ascendium Education Group, ECMC Foundation, and the Strada Education Foundation.

Classifying Community College Programs by Post-Completion Success in Transfer and Workforce is a guide that provides the conceptual framework and technical guidance for colleges to classify all their programs—and subsequently all enrollments and awards—into broad categories based on post-completion value.

The Enrollment Analysis Tool is a downloadable Excel-based tool that allows community colleges to enter their own program data, producing visualizations and analyses that enable college leaders to identify patterns and possible strategies to improve programs’ post-completion value and increase the number of students in high-value programs.

An Inquiry Guide on Classifying Community College Programs by Post-Completion Success in Transfer and Workforce accompanies the Enrollment Analysis Tool and further guides college leaders on what questions to consider as they review their data.

The Strengthening Community College Program Maps and Educational Plans for Post-Completion Value: Practical Guide helps colleges assess and strengthen program maps and ensure those maps are used to help students develop educational plans, all with the goal of helping students achieve strong post-completion outcomes—either through transferring to a bachelor’s program or securing a job with a living wage.

While no single reform will be required of network members, each college—including its president and senior team—will commit to advancing reforms by:

1. Setting a Family-Sustaining Wage Standard and Assessing Programs Against It

Presidents and their senior teams will begin this work by deciding on and refining a “waterline,” the baseline wage standard the college aims to ensure graduates earn in its regional context, then assessing which current programs’ graduates are likely to be above the waterline.

2. Setting Goals for Changing Program-Level Enrollments and Outcomes

Presidents and senior teams will engage in an analytic, goal-setting process rooted in evaluations of student enrollments by program. Teams will set goals for reducing enrollments/completions in low-value programs and increasing enrollments in high-value programs—specifically, CTE programs aligned to family-sustaining wages or pre-transfer associate degree programs. CCRC and Aspen have worked with many college leaders to provide support for such analysis.

3. Strengthening the Program Portfolio and Partnerships to Increase Post-Graduation Success

Evidence from the field shows that fewer than half of all community college credentials result in strong post-graduation success. For some students, this is because the associate degrees they earn do not have strong labor market value; they never transfer and earn a bachelor’s degree. For others, the cause is the design of the terminal CTE programs in which they enroll—the credentials they earn do not result in a family-sustaining wage job. Participating colleges will aim to change both of those realities. They will work to better align transfer-oriented associate degree programs with what it takes to transfer all credits to a four-year university with junior year standing in a major, and align CTE programs with the expectations of employers that offer family-sustaining wage jobs. This may mean creating new programs, redesigning existing ones, or sunsetting some programs. These program reform efforts will be critical to increasing the proportion of students in high-value programs. Colleges will also have an opportunity to strengthen partnerships with employers and universities. Using Aspen and CCRC’s Transfer Playbook and Aspen’s Workforce Playbook, colleges will craft strategies to improve how they work with key partners to improve post-completion outcomes for graduates.

4. Aligning Advising to the Goal of More Students Completing of High-Value Programs

Too many students begin their coursework with no clear pathway. They remain undecided for too long, weakening their motivation and causing them to accumulate too many credits that don’t contribute to either securing a good job right out of community college or attaining a bachelor’s degree that will afford them strong employment opportunities. Others make choices that are not aligned to their ultimate goals, failing to receive guidance that would help them pick degree programs and associated courses that lead to family-sustaining wage jobs and/or a highly structured pathways to a bachelor’s degree. Unlocking Opportunity will help colleges improve their advising systems so that more students make earlier and better program decisions and enroll in courses consistent with those decisions.

5. Institutionalizing Reforms

As Unlocking Opportunity colleges conduct student success reforms, they will also strengthen the systems that make scaling and sustaining reforms possible beyond engagement in the network. Participating colleges will have an opportunity to evaluate and consider reforms in several key capacity areas, including senior team operations, program approval and review processes, strategic finance and resourcing strategies, and ensuring that data use is aligned to college-wide focus on reforms.