Measuring the True Value of Community Colleges

Key Moments

00:00 Intro

02:44 Motivations for Enrolling in Community Colleges

04:42 The Role of Employers in Assessing Community Colleges

07:00 Measuring Success Beyond Getting a Better Job

10:21 Challenges in Fulfilling Career Motivations

19:14 Measuring Value Based on Students' Goals and Outcomes

21:08 The Need for a True Unit Record System in Higher Education

Transcript

Jeff Selingo:

So Michael, you probably recall when we were in Sun Valley earlier this season for a visit with the College of Western Idaho's Board and senior leadership team. While we were there, we recorded an episode of Future U. There was something that you said on that episode that has really stuck with me since, that community colleges have multiple roles, yet we often judge them with the same measuring stick as four-year colleges and that's degree completion.

Michael Horn:

Yeah, I do remember that day, Jeff. It was a perfect early fall morning in Idaho, and I was thinking of that because the College of Western Idaho is just a perfect example of one of those two-year colleges that embraces its modern role in the education and workforce system, and yet, it doesn't always get credit for it. So today we're going to revisit that topic specifically. What is the value of the nation's community colleges and how should we measure them? That's all ahead on this episode of Future U.

Sponsor:

This episode is brought to you by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation working to eliminate race, ethnicity and income as predictors of student success through innovation, data and information, policy and institutional transformation. This episode of Future You is sponsored by Ascendium Education Group, a nonprofit organization committed to helping learners from low-income backgrounds reach their education and career goals. For more information, visit ascendiumphilanthropy.org.

Jeff Selingo:

I'm Jeff Selingo.

Michael Horn:

And I'm Michael Horn.

Jeff Selingo:

Michael, so last fall, Strada Education Foundation released a report on the value of community colleges. It examined recent community college students' motivations for enrolling and their perceptions of the value of the degree, especially when it comes to whether it helped them achieve their goal.

Michael Horn:

In some ways, Jeff, you could say it used a light version of the Jobs- to-be Done framework. In the report, recent students gave 11 different reasons for their enrollment, and then Strada took those and divided those into three different groups or clusters. One was work, students are going to college to increase their earnings or get a better job. The second was personal, students are going to learn something new and become the best version of themselves. Number three was community, students want to learn more about their community and be a role model.

Jeff Selingo:

We tend to focus on the first one, work, when it comes to measuring success of higher ed. So we connected with Dave Clayton recently who is a senior vice president at Strada. He's in charge of their consumer insights research, and in the first half of the show today, we're going to share some highlights from that conversation. As Dave told us, a narrow focus on social mobility and economic opportunity, while valuable for measuring community colleges might obscure their overall contributions. Here's Dave.

Dave Clayton:

I'm a believer that from research and my own life experience, people seek transformation through education. Now, transformation in your earning power and your ability and your career opportunities is one part that security people seek. They also seek security in their quality of life, in their control over their lives. You can pick where you want to work, and you can pick your schedule, and you can be in an environment where you feel valued and successful, so education is a path to growth in that security. They're also seeking a personal security, a sense of self-worth, and, "I belong here, and I can do these things." So across those three things, I think if we don't measure all of them, then we don't serve the whole student or the whole learner, and that will cause our retention and our completion and our outcomes work to suffer.

Michael Horn:

That said, 60% of the recent students in the Strada study said that their motivation for enrolling in a community college was related to work. So beyond awarding the degree, how should two-year colleges be assessed to understand if they are succeeding in fulfilling that goal for students? Dave told us that employers play a critical role in measuring whether the colleges do indeed prepare students.

Dave Clayton:

Employers should be and would be eager to assess the development of the skills they're seeking and how well those cross the threshold from the trainings and education experience with the community college into the workplace and those investments. That mutuality, I would hope would create, again, shared collaboration and investment increasingly so on the part of employers as well as the expertise the community colleges have in actually teaching and delivering and training. I see that increasingly, actually, where non-degree credentials and workforce programs are looking to the expertise of professional educators, people who've dedicated their lives to that transformational learning and growth and development of skills.

Jeff Selingo:

Another finding that was interesting in the Strada report was that people who were making at least $48,000 after their community college experience, they valued the experience much higher than those who were below that 48,000 threshold. But if they were making say above 72,000, it didn't change their perception in a statistically significant way. Dave told us that $48,000 threshold has particular meaning.

Dave Clayton:

That 48,000, that's also a point at which you generally are no longer eligible for public assistance in states. It's a threshold that we see consistently both economically but also emotionally, and this works for bachelor's degree graduates as well. When they're across that $50,000 earnings threshold, their perceptions of the value of their experience, just like community college attendees is very real and different. But it's not maximizing the earnings, that you don't get that $10,000 more on 10 percentage points more likely to be happy. It really is this cut across sufficient and then that seems to open up the other outcomes and benefits.

Jeff Selingo:

So it made us wonder that if recent community college students are assessing the value of their experience based on the job they wanted it to do, and that job wasn't always about getting a better job, whether the degree itself as a critical measure of success at two-year colleges is really still relevant.

Dave Clayton:

We're not at the point where skills-based hiring is a reality in terms of employers' abilities to translate that into. We did see in the report very strong, again, differences for individuals who attributed skill development. These are not just specific technical skills, it's communication, it's learning new things, it's critical thinking, it's teamwork, it's leadership. Individuals who felt like they developed those skills through their education experience were much more likely to report that they had an earnings premium. They were more likely to report it was worth the cost. They were more likely to say it helped them fulfill their goals. So we can measure graduation and to the extent completion of associate's degree to the extent that we can, let's keep measuring it, but let's add to that and get more specificity. That, I think, will give individuals more confidence in even the decision to enroll and pursue something. My summary couplet is people want the promise they can become anything and the certainty they'll become something. That's where, I think, the battle is for higher education right now generally is this certainty that you will become something.

Michael Horn:

Jeff, that's such a beautiful line from Dave to end this first segment on, quote, "People want the promise they can become anything and the certainty they'll become something." So with that wisdom, we'll take a short break, and when we come back we'll discuss whether we need to rethink how we measure success in community colleges.

Jeff Selingo:

This episode of Future U is sponsored by Ascendium Education Group, a nonprofit organization committed to helping learners from low-income backgrounds reach their education and career goals. Ascendium believes that system-level change and a student-centric approach are important for our nation's efforts to boost postsecondary education and workforce training opportunities. That's why their philanthropy aims to remove systemic barriers faced by these learners, specifically first-generation students, incarcerated adults, veterans, students of color, adult learners and rural community members. For more information, visit ascendiumphilanthropy.org.

Michael Horn:

This episode is being brought to you by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Today's college students are more than just students. They are workers, parents and caregivers and neighbors, and colleges and universities need to change to meet their changing needs. Learn more about the Foundation's efforts to transform institutions to be more student-centered at usprogram.gatesfoundation.org.

Jeff Selingo:

Welcome back to Future You after that conversation with Dave Clayton from Strada. Michael, I know that you and Ethan Bernstein from at HBS and Bob Moesta, you have a new book coming out this fall that offers a framework for those switching jobs to ensure they make progress in their careers. What was interesting about the Strada research is that while career motivations are most common for students enrolling in community colleges, they're least likely to be fulfilled according to that research. Fewer than half of recent students in the Strada research reported that their education helped them to achieve their desired career outcomes. So if that career outcome is not being fulfilled, is that the fault of the community college? I'm not sure that four-year colleges would probably do that much better on that front, would they?

Michael Horn:

It's a really interesting observation, Jeff, and I think that there is evidence on both sides. First on the side that four-year colleges perhaps do better is that the value of the bachelor's degree in the marketplace is generally higher than associate's degrees. So that generally confers an advantage in the marketplace for jobs. On the other side of it, you'd have the Burning Glass Institute research, which they just replicated this again and see that underemployment continues to be significant among college graduates with bachelor's degrees; underemployment meaning students after they graduate, they take a job that does not actually require the degree that they just got. What they consistently have found is that roughly half of college graduates are, in fact, underemployed one year after graduation. But what's really interesting is that they find that about 45% of them are still underemployed five, 10 years later.

Michael Horn:

So I think that would be a support for what you just said, that four-year colleges probably aren't doing much better than community colleges on that front. But I think all of this brings to mind a different model for me from the Jobs-to-be-Done canon, if you will, which is the Kano model. I can't remember if we've talked about the Kano model before, but in essence what the Kano model says, and I'll try to do my best summary, it says that within a given experience or product or job to be done, there are three types of features, basic, performance and excitement. Basic features are the things that they have to be there or else the customer is completely dissatisfied. So Jeff, think seat belts and cars. If you don't have seat belts and cars, the car is a non-starter these days. But it turns out that you as the car manufacturer, you don't get extra points from customers for improving the seat belt.

Michael Horn:

Now the second category, those performance features, that's basically where customer satisfaction, it rises for basically every dollar that you invest in improving them. Then you have excitement features, and those are cherries on top, unexpected surprises that delight customers, customer doesn't ding you for not having them, but you get a lot of extra excitement when you unexpectedly to deliver them. To go back to the community colleges, I guess I was hearing the conversation and I was wondering, is a decent job that pays at least $48,000, is that table stakes? In other words, is that one of those basic features for individuals? If you don't get that out of your college experience, you're profoundly dissatisfied. You're basically saying that was not worth it, in other words. But interestingly, maybe as the college, you don't get a ton of benefit from improving beyond it, but you better deliver it as a baseline at least.

Jeff Selingo:

Yeah, I guess it's an interesting framework to think about, Michael, and the idea of a basic feature means that everyone should get it. So I guess the question is should everyone get a quality education at an undergraduate college? Sure. Should everyone feel safe at an undergraduate college? Sure. Should everyone have a sense of belonging and purpose? Probably. I guess one thing that I'm trying to figure out is, should having a job after you get a college degree, is that a basic feature or is that a performance feature? Let's take away the dollar figure for a second, but is it a basic feature that you should actually get a better job after a college degree than you would've had one before getting a college degree?

Michael Horn:

Yeah, look, it's a great question, Jeff, and I don't think there's a clear answer except that I think the public, rightly or wrongly, is increasingly expecting it as the basic part. I actually think it's interesting. Probably 20 years ago, it was a performance, and the really interesting thing about features in the Kano model is that they evolved over time. So a seatbelt-

Jeff Selingo:

Oh, interesting.

Michael Horn:

... 40 years ago, that was a performance-defining feature, probably longer than 40 years ago, whenever Ralph Nader did his magic, and then it became a basic feature. I guess I'm wondering are we in that evolution right now where people are saying table stakes given the cost, given the time, obviously community colleges don't cost as much, but there's still a time commitment, do I need a job on the other side? Then they're evaluating performance in different ways. I don't know the answer to that question, but that was what I was thinking about as Dave was talking us through this. You line that up with the other research, the UCLA Freshman Survey, all these data points suggest that's maybe where the world is going was my instinct.

Jeff Selingo:

Yeah, I was just thinking about that. Before 2008, the number one reason to go to college according to the UCLA freshman survey was to learn something. Then since 2008, it's to get a better job or to get a job. So it's clearly that colleges and universities have to evolve for that and maybe now it is a basic feature. I wanted to pivot to something else, Michael, because I know you've been a critic of degree completion among community colleges, and we both discussed transfer on the show many times before. I was curious, in the Strada research, community college attendees who complete an associate degree or transfer to a four-year institution, they value their education at rates much higher than those who did not complete a credential. It's comparable to or higher than recent bachelor degree completers, so clearly, getting that associate degree or transferring is absolutely critical.

Jeff Selingo:

But what's interesting about that is we know from different data from the Community College Research Center that most students go to community college with the intention of transferring to a four-year college and eventually getting a bachelor's degree, but most do not. Either they don't get to transfer at all, or if they transfer, they actually don't get that bachelor's degree. So if we are to measure community colleges on that front, then I'm starting to think that every single two-year college out there and every four-year college that is nearby, at least nearby, should be more tightly coupled together. I'm thinking of the president of George Mason who we've had on the show before and their direct connection program where students at Northern Virginia Community College technically start as Mason students or at the University of Central Florida, which has outposts on the campus of Valencia College, the two-year college near them, so that students really never have to leave campus to complete their degree.

Jeff Selingo:

Or now in Pennsylvania, we know where Governor Josh Shapiro is proposing that the state-owned four-year university system, the PASSHE System with Dan Greenstein, who we've had on the show before, they're now going to combine it looks like with the community college and, again, for one reason to make that much more of a seamless function between the two-year and the four-year colleges because it's clearly not happening enough. I think higher ed has had decades to figure this out. There are models out there as I've just mentioned, University of Central Florida and George Mason, but we should be able to count more than just a couple of models on our hands. So it's still not working. I'm usually not a fan of more regulation, especially from this education department, which as we know has become more like the Division of Consumer Affairs in higher ed. But this is a front where I think consumers need to be assisted in making the transition from two to four-year degrees.

Jeff Selingo:

I think unless the states or the federal government mandates it, I'm not quite sure that beyond the few examples that we keep highlighting on the show that we're going to actually end up figuring this out. But Michael, I also want to return to the two-year measurement piece again, and this idea that we even measure completion rates in higher ed through traditional measures and completion rates, I should say, in community colleges through traditional measures. We asked Dave whether the degree itself, the two-year degree, the associate's degree is really the right measure in community college is a value. He seemed to punt on the question. He said that skills-based hiring isn't there yet, and so I was curious on your thoughts. Is there a different way to measure value and success of two-year institutions beyond just this simple percentage of students who complete a degree? Because as we know looking at the numbers, it's not really that high. In fact, pretty shockingly low at some campuses.

Michael Horn:

Yeah, great question, Jeff. Just three quick reactions to what you just said, and then I'll answer your question. I promise I'm not going to duck it. The first one is plus one to tighter integration. I think that's a really important point you just made. Second, I wondered from what you just said about those who complete the degree having higher satisfaction, maybe degree completion is a performance feature, not a basic feature through that Kano model before. Controversial hot take there, but question mark. Then I guess the third piece just on that skills-based hiring point I took away from our book Job Moves that you referenced earlier that comes out toward the end of this year. In the research for that, one of my takeaways, if we're waiting for skills-based hiring to be fully there, we're going to be waiting a really freaking long time, Jeff. So I think we have to get to your answer, which is, are there other ways to measure value? Now, maybe I'm a broken record on this, but here I go. Education Quality Outcomes Standards, EQOS, right? [inaudible 00:20:26]

Jeff Selingo:

I knew you were going to bring them up.

Michael Horn:

You knew I was going to do it. We suggested, and as listeners who've long listened to us know, I'm in favor of keeping track of a bunch of metrics. Learning outcomes, degree completion was one of them, although I'll be honest, it's actually not one of my favorites. I think we ought to be looking at value added return on investment. We ought to be looking at job placement or placement into the next academic institution or whatever the goal was. I think we ought to be measuring ex post-satisfaction like the Strada report did. But this should all start, in my view, with understanding what is the student's goal upon entering, and then let's measure against that. By measuring relative to the student's goal, in essence, you'd create a measure of the percentage of students whose goal the college successfully filled in essence, and then we can audit against that. Now for some students degree or program completion, that might be a critical part of that. For others, it might be transfer.

Michael Horn:

For others, it might be a better job, and then I'm good. "I'm going to leave the college, 'cause I got what I wanted out of it." It could be ROI, but I would just love to understand on the front end, what are you here for? Let's measure it. Ask the students after the fact, "Hey, knowing what you know now, would you choose to repeat that experience?" Then let's see where the chips fall, basically. What I will just end with is, while I'm not in love with community colleges getting measured by just degree completion, what I'm even less in love with, Jeff, though, is community colleges complaining about getting measured by degree completion or academic transfer and then not offering a meaningful and meaty and clearly measured alternative. Look, I put out one just now, Strada, I think, offers some ways to go at it, but I think it's time. Let's start to measure something in a meaningful meaty way and be accountable for that. It doesn't have to be degree completion, but it has to be something.

Jeff Selingo:

Yeah. Let me just add a few quick thoughts on that, Michael. First of all, I agree with you on degree completion. Academic transfer I feels like is a little bit out of their control. They could try their best on that front, but I think it's really the four-year colleges that are holding that up because they just don't want to take those credits from some of those community colleges. Particularly when you're talking about the public flagships in some of these states, they just don't feel like those credits are worth it to them.

Jeff Selingo:

But I do like this idea of trying to understand what students want coming in the door and then measuring the quality of the institution based on that. But for that to happen, I feel like we need a true unit record system where we could really measure students not only through college, but then their employment outcomes and eventually whether they go on to get further degrees, for example. Do they go on to get that four-year degree? Do they get a master's degree or whatever it might be? The only way we're going to do that is by having a true unit record system.

Michael Horn:

Well, let me cut you off there and just say, yes, we need a true unit record system in higher ed. It would help us understand all these questions about quality and value so, so much more and give us a lot more data to understand student pathways. But I'll let you keep going with your points.

Jeff Selingo:

Yeah, I think the other thing about degrees, we tend to focus a lot on the economic outcome of them, but they give students more choice. That's the thing. My work with the Burning Glass Institute showed that at least on the four-year degree, and I think this is also true of two-year degrees of value, which I'll get to in a minute, that the bachelor's degree provided much more than just higher earnings, but mobility. This was clear five, 10 years out where students who might have started in a underemployment role, you were mentioning the underemployment research that Burning Glass had done recently, and what it found was that students who had the degree and were in a job that didn't require a degree, they were able to get out of that job much more quickly than somebody without a college degree.

Jeff Selingo:

I think this is also true, we're hearing a lot about degreeless hiring right now. For example, states and other companies, "Oh, we don't require a bachelor's degree." I think that's all fine and good if they want to do that. If you get a job there, good for you. But you're going to be now in their ecosystem. It's going to be very hard to get a promotion sometimes in these companies. But more importantly, you're not going to be able to move out and up into other fields or into other companies or other organizations as a result. So I think that choice that you get when you have a degree is critically important. So this goes back to this concept of transfer with the two-year degree, because even when students get a two-year degree, if it's not in something that has currency in the job market and a lot of two-year degrees, if students come into community colleges thinking they're going to transfer, they may be less interested in necessarily getting an associate's degree that does have currency in the job market.

Jeff Selingo:

It might be more like a general studies associate's degree. We found in the work that I do with Burning Glass Institute that essentially, a general studies two-year degree or a two-year degree that doesn't have currency in the job market, in other words, that an employer is not looking for that very specific two-year degree, it's worth as much as a high school diploma then in the job market, and it doesn't lead to good employment outcomes as a result. But Michael, before we head out, there's one last piece from Strada and the Strada research that I want to bring up. The students who say that their education helped them to develop communication, critical thinking and leadership skills, earn more money and they rate their value of education much more highly than those who didn't feel that their education helped them develop those skills.

Jeff Selingo:

So once again, we see that the dual job of higher education or education, I should say in general, to provide both foundational skills, general foundational skills like critical thinking and communication, plus adding those job-specific skills that we know also matter, those two things together really provide the great outcomes of higher education. It's not one or the other. So with that, we're out of here. Remember to follow me and Michael on social media. I'm @jselingo on Instagram and X and Jeff Selingo on Facebook and LinkedIn. Michael is @michaelbhorn on Instagram, X and LinkedIn. Also, follow this show at Future U Podcast, and wherever you listen to us, please rate or comment on the show because that really helps others find us. We're about to head into the final stretch of the season before we take our traditional summer break, and we can't really wait to share what we have coming up. So we'll see you next time on Future U.