Why colleges should embrace program depth over breadth

“Bobby Pace is provost and vice president of academic success at the Community College of Aurora, in Colorado. Jennifer Dale is the college’s associate vice president of online and the Centennial Campus. Postsecondary institutions across the country are battling financial headwinds that are making it more difficult for public funding sources to keep up. A recent report from Pew Charitable Trusts highlights the three-way squeeze facing higher education: federal cuts and canceled grants, ongoing enrollment challenges, and increasing strain on state budgets are putting unprecedented pressure on institutions nationwide. These financial pressures pose a unique challenge for institutions like ours whose mission from the beginning has been access — access for learners of all ages and abilities, and access to classes and programs of all kinds. At times of economic uncertainty, how can such institutions maintain their focus on broad-based offerings for all sorts of learners? We have felt these financial stresses all too keenly at the Community College of Aurora, which serves over 9,000 students in Colorado. But in response, we took a different approach: a comprehensive academic portfolio review that ultimately led us to eliminate more than 30 degree and certificate programs. The story here, though, is not about cutting programs. It is about redefining access in a constrained fiscal and enrollment environment. It is about program depth — not breadth — as a strategy for boosting economic mobility. And it should inform a national argument about stewardship and institutional responsibility. On the surface, cutting so many academic programs might seem misaligned with our longtime mission of providing access. But whether we like it or not, students are making their own choices about which programs they select, and institutions need to ensure we are listening and responding in kind. As colleges nationwide deal with unprecedented pressure, here’s where to start. Let data — and labor market needs — lead the way For us, the data spoke for itself. An analysis of enrollment trends and student and industry demand revealed we had programs that had enrolled only a handful of students over the past decade. Worse, we discovered that some programs were graduating students whose skills didn’t match those needed for the available jobs in our region. That’s a lesson any institution can take to heart by using enrollment numbers and regional wage and job data to prioritize programs that align with the needs of the local economy. Talk to employers and the local community In addition to the data, talk to the employers in your community directly — ask them what skills they need. Have them share whether your hunches are correct about which programs are most important to invest in, and which aren’t. We enlisted the nonprofit Education Design Lab to help us design a process to collaborate authentically with local employers, regional industries, and state agencies. This was not just an internal program review. We structured it from the beginning to engage employers and codesigned with them to align with our regional workforce strategy. This engagement was critical because it helped bring to the table the right people with the right information about the labor market. Together, we designed new programs to meet local and regional labor market demand and help our students access good jobs in high-wage, high-demand fields. The collaboration has already led to the launch of two significant new health care programs that will go a long way toward meeting the tremendous community demand for nurses and behavioral health specialists. Speaking with employers also led to the creation of four in-demand focus areas — skilled trades, health care, creative industries, and STEM — where the need was greatest. Don’t be afraid to make cuts that make sense We stopped offering several degrees that had little to no enrollment and where regional employment data showed low wages and no current or projected demand for their graduates. At the same time, we expanded courses in emerging fields like digital content creation and social media entrepreneurship that show strong labor market demand. Importantly, cutting programs is not the same as cutting courses. With the exception of a handful of career and technical education courses, our students retain access to the full array of general education classes they’ve always had. Play to your strengths While we do offer a bachelor’s degree program and will be expanding it, we know that many CCA students plan to transfer to a four-year institution. Our research found that many of those students want to take their general education courses at our college and delay selecting a major until after transferring. That meant that we needed to clarify transfer pathways for our students to reduce the number of credits they would have to repeat after they switched institutions. By focusing on general associate of arts and association of science transfer pathways, we could maintain a broad array of liberal arts options for all our students without holding up their graduation and transfer with specialized courses that may have limited capacity. Changes like these might lead to pushback — as they did for us Among the criticisms, we heard that cutting long-standing, low-enrolled programs undermined the college’s mission. Our response was that the college exists to ensure that our students can achieve social and economic mobility, and if our programs don’t lead our graduates to a good job or a four-year university, we have done them a disservice. Our students can choose to follow pathways to either employment or transfer — both of them are viable — but they have to be able to go deep into whatever path they choose, and these paths must lead to meaningful employment or transfer opportunities after they earn their credentials. The traditional model of many institutions that emphasizes access to every conceivable program is not just financially unsustainable. It also doesn’t provide students with what they really need. Rather than trying to be all things to all people at all times, institutions have an opportunity to build a stronger future by focusing on preparing students for good jobs based on the wage and demand data of the local economy. By decreasing the number of existing options and reallocating funds to high-impact new programs — by offering depth instead of breadth — colleges and universities can build stable and rewarding pathways in increasingly unsettled times.

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