A new brief from California Competes highlights promising practices gathered from 10 California community colleges on their efforts to recruit and retain adult learners who lack a college degree.
The state has 6.8 million adults ages 25 to 54 who have a high school diploma but don’t have a postsecondary credential, which California Competes says is as an enrollment opportunity, as the number of current high school graduates is expected to dip due to declining demographics.
Community colleges that used an adult-focused “strategic enrollment management” (SEM) framework saw positive results in enrollment and student persistence from various practices, such as data-driven outreach, early intervention and flexible scheduling, the brief says. The key strategies used by the participating colleges–which will be familiar to community college leaders — include:
- Tailoring institutional outreach
- Monitoring student progress and intervening early
- Holding summits to focus on student-centered scheduling
- Bridging noncredit courses to credit courses and pathways
- Forging community partnerships to reach potential students
- Using data to inform decisions
- Aligning SEM with other initiatives
The brief provides examples of each. For instance, under bridging noncredit courses to credit courses and pathways, it observes one college that realized a large number of adults in the area were enrolling in noncredit English language classes taught through adult education. As a result, it focused on building on-ramps from these classes to certificate programs that lead to jobs with decent starting wages, according to the brief.
As an example of forging community partnerships, researchers noted three rural colleges teamed with government entities, local four-year universities and community-based organizations to expand farmworkers’ access to agricultural technology programs. By leveraging competency-based education, the initiative created an agriculture systems certificate to train and upskill workers, the brief says.
Researchers also saw some common persistent challenges to these efforts among the colleges, such as:
- Limited staffing and capacity
- Financial constraints
- System-level barriers
- Lack of infrastructure in rural areas
Nearly every participating college cited staffing challenges as a significant barrier to implementation.
“These challenges manifested in various ways, including high turnover rates disrupting project
continuity, limited capacity to take on new initiatives while maintaining existing services, and a feeling of overwhelm amid the multitude of new policies with which colleges must comply,” the brief says.
Colleges also reported contending with high enrollment and financial aid fraud levels, which
divert staff resources from assisting actual applicants and students.
Based on the promising practices, California Completes provides the following recommendations to support adult learners:
- Collect and use data to inform decisions.
- Create shared definitions and metrics for tracking adult learner success.
- Provide data analysis tools, training and support to faculty and staff.
- Foster partnerships in the community.
- Provide space for intra-campus collaboration.
- Identify a project champion.
- Build a collaborative ecosystem.
- Share effective materials and strategies.
- Intentionally build course schedules to meet students’ needs.
- Offer resources for professional development and engagement.
- Allocate funding for positions specifically focused on developing and supporting adult learner pathways.
- Identify and leverage existing funding sources that can be used to advance adult SEM efforts.
