VCCS Presentation to the OP-6 Group
SCHEV Offices, Monroe Building
Thursday, July 27, 2017
(Remarks as Prepared)
Dr. Glenn DuBois, VCCS Chancellor
Ladies and gentlemen, good morning.
Thank you for the chance to update you on where we stand in relation to both our previous six-year plan and the new version that will take us forward.
We face some significant challenges in terms of enrollment declines – a challenge that is affecting community colleges and other institutions across the nation. Over the last six years, our community college enrollment has declined by nearly 57,000 students.
The good news is that this challenge is not catching us flat-footed. The strategies we shared with you two years ago are the right strategies to reverse that trend and attract more students.
In just a moment, I will share some highlights with a focus on the top three priorities of our previous plan. We don’t have enough time, of course, to go through everything. It’s fair to say, however, that our previous six-year plan is a list of promises made and promises kept.
Momentum is what carries our focus today – Implementing the many bright and promising ideas we proposed a few years ago, that are becoming reality thanks to the support and the resources provided by our many partners in the room today.
When I am finished, I will hand things over to Dr. Sharon Morrissey, our vice chancellor of academic services and research, will talk about the exciting priorities that we have to make the academic experience more tangible to 21st century students who come to our colleges seeking not simply a way forward but often a direction to pursue.
She will hand off to Dr. Craig Herndon, our vice chancellor for workforce development services, who will discuss the game-changer that Virginia’s Workforce Credentials Grants have become; and what’s needed to continue that momentum of elevating the commonwealth’s workforce and connecting individuals with high-demand jobs.
And finally Ms. Donna Van Cleave, our vice chancellor for administrative services will talk about the man-behind-the-curtain efforts we are leading to make our administrative efforts more efficient. And she will discuss the necessary steps we are taking to bolster our online operations in a world of growing, and worsening, cyber threats.
OLD PRIORITY #1 TRIPLE CREDENTIALS
Two years ago our top priority was to triple the numbers of degrees, diploma, certifications and other credentials we put into the Virginia economy.
That remains our priority today, matching our internal six-year strategic plan, called Complete 2021.
We’ve advanced practically every strategy we articulated then.
We have contracted with the Educational Advisory Board for the technology called Navigate that will help us bring more structure to the way we onboard students, help them progress through their studies, and complete their programs.
That works begins before our students are even enrolled. Our colleges are no longer tied exclusively to our placement exams. There are now multiple measures – including high school G-P-A and S-A-T scores – that can be considered for college placement.
Once our student is enrolled, we are bringing more structure to the pathways they travel. We’re sorting our mind-blowing number of offerings into more understandable meta-majors. We’re redesigning the way we offer mathematics, and the expectations we have for students in different pathways as they take it. And we have begun the thorny work of credential stacking, including mixing in third-party credentials into our career education tracks.
While we are establishing Veterans advising programs, and increasing the number of college earning national cyber security designations, we are scaling student success strategies across our entire system. That includes the implementing of an outcomes-based funding distribution model. New E-and-G funding for the current biennium pays for some of that. By FY-18, that model will determine how we spend $45 million – or 14-percent – of our entire E-and-G appropriation.
OLD PRIORITY 2 VIRGINIA’S HIRING CHALLENGES
Our second priority was to address Virginia’s hiring challenges – the reality that tens of thousands of jobs sit unfilled across Virginia because businesses can’t find candidates with the right skills to hire.
The most obvious example of our progress here is the New Economy Workforce Credentials Grant. In the first year of implementing this pay-for-performance model, we exhausted the $5 million that was allocated to SCHEV to support the training programs.
That allowed us to nearly triple the number of high-demand, industry recognized credentials students earned through our training programs to nearly 4,300. Of that number, more than half were grant recipients.
The W-C-G program has been a game-changer for how we pursue the workforce side of our mission. That includes repurposing nearly $11 million to award to our colleges, on a competitive basis, to expand workforce training capacity. This has inspired some creative partnerships among community colleges and with community business groups.
The funding for those competitive grants did NOT come from W-C-G funding. In fact, the pay-for-performance structure of the W-C-G program does not allow for that.
Instead, we repurposed other monies. The sources include previously appropriated state funds for noncredit workforce training – including a portion of the Higher Education Equipment Trust Fund, the Institutes for Excellence, and some of the training dollars allocated from the McDonnell Administration, as well as federal workforce dollars.
While the W-C-G programs makes this training more affordable, the costs can still be daunting to some of the people who can most benefit from it. Accordingly, the General Assembly and Governor appropriated about $1 million and we then designated an additional $1 million for need-based student financial aid appropriate to help these students in the current fiscal year.
Coming this fall, we are launching a research-driven outreach effort to attract even more individuals to these programs. This effort is making the most of the General Fund appropriation we received to address the commonwealth’s interest gap.
And, of course, we have made great strides in breaking down barriers that used to stop us from tracking and counting the third-party credentials to which our training programs lead. That’s no small task given the nearly 150 training programs that are included within the W-C-G program.
OLD PRIORITY 3 AFFORDABILITY & TRANSFER SUCCESS
And finally, our third priority was ensuring college affordability and transfer success. Again, this is an area where we are implementing a number of the strategies we’ve previously shared with this group.
The first thing to mention here is that we’ve been able to expand financial aid for our students thanks to the nearly $4 million in additional state financial aid funding included in each year of the current biennium.
We have conducted financial aid course audits to ensure that students – and for that matter, tax payers – are not paying for unnecessary courses.
We continue to grow the number of courses that cost little to nothing in terms of text book costs. Our Open Educational Resources is a maturing strategy now in use at all 23 colleges, covering more than 100 different courses.
This fall, 16 of our colleges will be offering entire certificate or degree programs that are fully O-E-R – meaning no textbook costs. Even more classes and programs are in the O-E-R planning stages.
And finally, let me mention the Veterans’ Portal that we anticipate launching later this fall. This online tool will make it easier than ever before for our military-related students to take advantage of credit for prior learning, and easily and succinctly match up their in-uniform learning with current academic programs. We’re taking the guess-work out of that process.
OLD PRIORITY 7 ADMINISTRATIVE EFFICIENCY
One additional priority I want to touch on was the one we articulated around improving the efficiency and effectiveness of our administrative services.
It was just about a year ago to this day that the first wave of services started at the Shared Services Center that we opened in Daleville.
Today, all 23 of our colleges and the System Office receive some service from that Center. This past spring, the Shared Services Center reached a new phase, rolling out procurement; accounts payable; collections; and travel and expense reimbursement.
As proud as we are of that Shared Service Center, we know that its work is really just beginning, and we’ll be talking about it a lot in the coming years.
CONCLUSION
With that, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to hand things off to Dr. Sharon Morrissey, who will talk to you about how we will advance the implementation of many of those academically-focused priorities in the updated six-year plan…
Dr. Sharon Morrissey, VCCS Vice Chancellor for Academic Services & Research
Two years ago, the Virginia Community College System adopted the Complete 2021 plan to triple credentials and SCHEV finalized the Virginia Plan for Higher Education. In response to the goals established in these plans, VCCS developed a set of comprehensive priorities focused on increasing student success outcomes at our community colleges. Many of the priorities we described to you two years ago are either completed or underway, and I will speak more about those in a few minutes.
But first, I want to describe two new priorities for the VCCS over the next biennium.
The first priority has emerged as a result of a year of intense study of dual enrollment that was initiated by Secretary Holton and continued under Secretary Trent. This study is focused on three areas: quality and rigor, structured pathways, and cost. University, community college, and K-12 representatives have been engaged in the study, which will result in policy and process changes to ensure that high school students continue to have access to rigorous community college courses that lead to transfer or careers.
One of the concerns raised by the study is cost, and the VCCS is working on a uniform cost structure for high-school based dual enrollment. But another issue related to cost is when the cost of college enrollment is passed on to families. This is a particular concern for students from disadvantaged populations whose families cannot afford to pay.
Another concern raised by the study is that the majority of high school students who take college courses are not enrolled in programs leading to seamless transfer or to a career. Of the 38,000 students who were dually enrolled in high school and community college in 2016-17, fewer than 9 percent were placed in a program of study.
In fact, it is difficult for colleges to place dual enrolled students in programs of study because course offerings are limited by the qualifications of high school teachers. That’s why so many dual enrolled students take college transfer courses instead of enrolling in career education programs that meet regional workforce needs. In addition, dual enrolled students are not receiving the advising and guidance they need to make good decisions about which courses to take. As a result, too many students end up with a bag of credits that doesn’t add up to anything.
And a third concern from the study is that in many areas of the state, high school students do not have access to state-of-the-art laboratory equipment and rigorous hands-on classroom instruction provided by highly qualified faculty in programs that are aligned with labor market needs.
Over the past year, VCCS presidents and vice presidents have studied and debated opportunities for improving dual enrollment pathways. The first strategy to emerge from this study is our Priority 1: Build Accelerated Debt-Free Career Education Pathways by partnering with K-12.
The goal of this priority is to create a more transparent, efficient model of acceleration for high school students interested in attaining career education credentials.
We hear more and more from researchers and economists about the value of sub-baccalaureate credentials, and we hear from employers that there aren’t enough young people graduating from high school and college with technical education skills needed to meet today’s workforce needs. But there is evidence that students who complete career-focused sub-baccalaureate credentials—associate degrees and certificates—can earn middle class wages. Earlier this week, new research from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce reported that good jobs—those that pay between a minimum of $35,000 to $45,000 per year, increasingly are going to associate-degree holders or to workers with some college education. The Georgetown report also says that the number of good jobs for graduates with associate degrees increased by 83 percent since 1991. This report affirms what labor market research has been telling us for some time now—a high school diploma is no longer the finish line.
The model we are proposing will address the three concerns I outlined a moment ago. First, it will create streamlined, structured career education pathways for high school juniors and seniors that that lead to completion of a short certificate while the student is enrolled in high school and culminate in an associate in applied science degree that the student will complete within one year post-high school graduation. This stackable credentials model will accelerate completion of certificates and associate degrees leading to good jobs in high-demand careers.
Second, this model will provide debt-free pathways to careers, with a last-dollar scholarship available to eligible students to complete the final year of study at the community college.
And third, we will maximize the use of our colleges’ state of the art labs and fully credentialed faculty who teach in these career education fields. Our career education programs are tightly aligned with employer needs, and our faculty will ensure that instruction is rigorous and that students are learning the skills necessary for successful employment. In addition, the final year of study at the community college will include a work-based learning component to prepare students for the workplace.
Through this partnership, we can build pathways that lead to high-paying careers, such as allied health or information technology or engineering design technology or cybersecurity. We have already begun conversations with Superintendent Staples, who has pledged his full support for this strategy because it aligns so well with the State Board of Education’s high school redesign. This partnership could lead to innovative high school redesigns where the senior year is shared with the community college.
We will ask for additional state funding of $300,000 in FY 2019 to plan the new accelerated pathways from high school through community colleges. Planning will include a gap analysis of career education programs for high school students as well as roundtable discussions with superintendents, high school principals, and parents. Once gaps are identified, action plans will be developed to meet regional workforce needs.
Future funding will be needed to support students in these debt-free pathways, either at the high school or post-graduation at the community college. The amount of funding and other resources needed will be determined through the analysis and planning with VDOE and local school divisions.
PRIORITY 4
Our second new priority, which is Priority 4 in our six-year plan, is Raising Awareness of Career Pathways that Lead to Family Sustaining Wages. This effort is to address two needs. First, we know that underrepresented populations have low postsecondary participation rates, and we need to increase their access to education that leads to careers with family sustaining wages. Second, with historically low unemployment rates in Virginia, we are experiencing the deepest enrollment decline in the history of the Community College System, and at the same time we have a very low application yield rate, compared to other higher education institutions. We need to develop the expertise to increase the number of applicants who follow through and enroll at our community colleges.
We plan to lead an outreach campaign to leverage social and mobile media technology to promote the value of higher education pathways to careers that offer family-sustaining wages. And, we are launching an enrollment management taskforce to leverage a pilot project underway at 10 community colleges to adopt national student recruitment and retention best practices; some of these strategies could become part of our shared services center.
PRIORITY 5
A number of initiatives are already underway to create seamless pathways between education, training, and employment, which is our 5th priority.
During the upcoming year, we will convene faculty discipline committees to map competencies to create system-wide articulated credit opportunities for students who have obtained industry certifications through the New Economy Workforce Credential Grant Program and for students who have successfully completed a state-approved registered apprenticeship credential in a field that is aligned with a credit-bearing program of study.