“Transformation” is a buzzword in today’s world, and it’s easy to talk about why it’s necessary. But how do you actually do the hard work of bringing about change within a college or university? This week's episode of The Key features highlights from a panel session at this month's SXSWedu conference in Austin, Tex. The discussion, heavy on practical advice for leading change within and across institutions, includes Michael Sorrell, president of Paul Quinn College; Michelle Weise, vice chancello...
Mar 24, 2022•27 min•Season 2Ep. 74
Like a lot of undergraduate-focused, smaller institutions, historically black colleges and universities typically went online selectively, sporadically – or not at all. But that’s beginning to change, thanks to significant multi-college collaborations and help from funders increasingly recognizing the value and importance of these underresourced institutions. This week’s episode of The Key examines several major initiatives in which major philanthropies, corporations and nonprofit organizations ...
Mar 18, 2022•39 min•Season 2Ep. 73
It only took a few decades, but colleges and universities are hiring more Black and brown presidents to lead their institutions. This week's episode digs into data Inside Higher Ed published last month showing a big upturn in the proportion of minority presidents and chancellors that colleges hired in the year and a half after the death of George Floyd. Better than one in three presidents hired from June 2020 through November 2021 were people of color, a full quarter were Black, and the proporti...
Mar 03, 2022•32 min•Season 2Ep. 72
The Carnegie Classifications are an enduring institution in higher education – but they’re about to undergo a facelift that could be dramatic. This week’s episode of The Key explores the recent news that the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching -- which created the main system we use to differentiate among types of colleges and universities about 50 years ago – had chosen the American Council on Education, the largest and most diverse association of college presidents, to remake a...
Feb 22, 2022•48 min•Season 2Ep. 71
College students almost certainly lost ground academically during the pandemic. But do we know how much? And what should colleges do about it? This week’s episode explores a free report Inside Higher Ed published in December, “Back on Track: Helping Students Recover From COVID-19 Learning Disruption.” It examines the available evidence about how the pandemic affected students’ educational paths, and finds, somewhat unsurprisingly, that most colleges really don’t know whether their students suffe...
Feb 07, 2022•31 min•Season 2Ep. 70
Colleges tend to compete rather than collaborate. That’s why a new five-college cooperative in New Mexico is so unusual. This week’s episode explores the Collaborative for Higher Education Shared Services, or CHESS. It’s made up, so far, of five independent community colleges in New Mexico that have teamed up because they think they’re stronger together than apart. They’ve started by agreeing to create a common enterprise resource planning structure to share resources and information in areas su...
Nov 29, 2021•20 min•Season 2Ep. 69
The era of flexible work in higher education has begun. The pandemic drastically altered our collective relationship with work in the moment, but how will faculty, staff and administrative jobs look differently going forward? In this week’s episode, administrators at two institutions that are addressing these questions head-on discuss their approaches. Natalie McKnight is dean of the College of General Studies at Boston University and co-chair of its Committee on the Future of Staff Work, whose ...
Nov 19, 2021•39 min•Season 2Ep. 68
In the last month, California enacted a law that could greatly expand the number of bachelor’s degree programs being offered by the state’s 116 community colleges. And Arizona approving legislation allowing massive systems like the Maricopa Community Colleges to award their own four-year degrees for the first time. Half of all states now enable their community colleges to offer baccalaureate degrees, but how many, and in what fields, remain a source of contention in many places. Advocates for th...
Nov 12, 2021•23 min•Season 2Ep. 67
Are politicians and the public losing faith in higher education? Last week delivered unwelcome news to colleges and universities. New data from the National Student Clearinghouse showed that college enrollments tumbled again this fall, with hundreds of thousands fewer students opting to start or continue their educations than even during the heart of the pandemic last fall. And a scaled-back version of President Biden’s Build Back Better Act contained about $40 billion in new funds for colleges ...
Nov 04, 2021•35 min•Season 2Ep. 66
Federal data now allow anyone who wishes to identify academic programs whose graduates on average earn more than enough to repay their student debt -- or don’t. As journalists and think tank analysts dissect the data, many of the programs whose graduates don’t earn enough to repay their debt prepare people for industries that don’t pay very well but that society values, such as teaching or the clergy. Degrees in the arts are a particular target. In this week’s episode of The Key, New America’s K...
Oct 28, 2021•37 min•Season 2Ep. 65
“Time is growing short.” That’s how Bloomfield College’s president, Marcheta P. Evans, described the struggling private college’s situation this week in an atypical plea for help. Bloomfield, whose students are overwhelmingly black, Hispanic and from low-income backgrounds, acknowledged that it won’t make it through the 2022-23 academic year in its current condition, and asked for help from potential philanthropists and partner institutions to keep its mission alive. In this week’s episode, Marc...
Oct 21, 2021•29 min•Season 2Ep. 64
Data is a four-letter word in some quarters of higher education, even as many people call for colleges and universities to get better at using data and analytics to support institutional decision-making. Plenty of academics equate discussions about “data” with an overemphasis on efficiency or productivity or accountability, and worry that college leaders will put algorithms and numbers ahead of thoughtful analysis. Amelia Parnell strongly believes in the power of good information to help college...
Oct 14, 2021•29 min•Season 2Ep. 63
This episode explores the retailer’s $1.2 billion investment in helping workers earn degrees -- and how it reflects the complicated, sometimes conflictual relationship between colleges and employers. Last month Amazon announced a plan to spend $1.2 billion by 2025 to expand its employee education and training offerings, which include a set of internal programs but also cover the full cost of academic programs up to bachelor’s degrees for its front-line workers. In this week’s episode of The Key,...
Oct 05, 2021•20 min•Season 2Ep. 62
Many employers and critics of higher education think many colleges and universities focus too little on ensuring that their graduates thrive after they leave, and favor holding institutions accountable for how their students fare in the job market. That’s unpalatable to a lot of academics, who view a college education as about more than how much you earn. The guests in this week's episode, Wake Forest University’s Andy Chan and Christine Cruzvergara of Handshake, endorse the view that colleges a...
Sep 29, 2021•28 min•Season 2Ep. 61
Despite our expectations and hopes, here we are in another COVID fall. This week’s episode of The Key examines how the pandemic is affecting institutions, students and employees as most colleges and universities strive to keep their reopened campuses … open. Elizabeth Redden, a senior reporter who has driven Inside Higher Ed’s coverage of the pandemic since its earliest days, joins The Key to discuss a wide range of issues: Enormous variation in how the coronavirus – and politics related to the ...
Sep 23, 2021•27 min•Season 2Ep. 60
The Biden administration has promised once-in-a-generation investments and changes in higher education. Legislation introduced in the House of Representatives this month would take meaningful steps in that direction. This week’s episode of The Key digs into what could end up being one of the most significant pieces of federal higher education policy making in many years: the Build Back Better Act. It includes the American College Promise, his plan to make community college tuition-free, signific...
Sep 17, 2021•40 min•Season 2Ep. 59
Most of us had hoped for a lot more stability this fall, but here we are. For those of you involved in teaching and learning at your colleges and universities, that means continuing to live in that sometimes uncomfortable space you’ve inhabited for the last 18 months: Will my class have to go remote tomorrow? Have I designed my course to withstand that kind of disruption? Can I be effective no matter what setting we’re in? These may not be fleeting questions for institutions and instructors, as ...
Sep 08, 2021•29 min•Season 2Ep. 58
Much higher education coverage related to COVID-19 focused on 18-year-old students being displaced from their dorms and listening to history lectures or watching biology videos in their childhood bedrooms. Relatively little attention was paid to the pandemic’s impact on career and technical education, much of which involves hands-on learning. In this week’s episode of The Key, Shayne Spaulding, a senior fellow in the income and benefits policy center at the Urban Institute, discusses research th...
Aug 19, 2021•29 min•Season 2Ep. 57
A wide range of education and training providers strive to help working adults enter or advance in the workforce. Community colleges and a growing number of other nonprofit and for-profit universities are intensifying their longstanding efforts. Companies like Amazon, Google and others are investing in their own programs, with and without colleges. And an almost endless array of startups, funded by investors seeing a new market, are creating shorter, less expensive programs aimed at getting peop...
Aug 05, 2021•35 min•Season 2Ep. 56
The set of programs, policies and pathways by which learners move between colleges and universities is complex and often incoherent. Many students enter the transfer maze and never get through it, costing them time and money. That’s especially problematic because the students who seek to transfer are disproportionately those whom higher education has historically served least well – students from low-income backgrounds, members of underrepresented minority groups, working learners. This week’s e...
Jul 29, 2021•27 min•Season 2Ep. 55
“Learning loss” – the idea that students failed to stay on their previous trajectory – has been much discussed in K-12 education during the pandemic. We hear far less about it in higher education, even though students and faculty members alike consistently say they believe students have learned less in the last year than they usually do. In this week’s episode of The Key, we discuss what colleges and universities will be facing as most prepare to welcome students back to their physical classroom...
Jul 20, 2021•38 min•Season 2Ep. 54
Students have offered mixed assessments of their learning experiences during the pandemic year. Many of them have complained about the lack of interaction with peers and professors in virtual environments, but appreciated the flexibility they gained in when and how they learned. With many colleges planning a significant if not full return to their physical campuses this fall, what will students be expecting from their institutions and their professors when it comes to learning? Have the last 15 ...
Jul 14, 2021•42 min•Season 2Ep. 53
Many college students and professors will return to their physical campuses this fall, and it’s tempting to think things will return to “normal” when they do. But given the events of the past 15 months, what happens in the classroom come September is likely to be anything but normal. In this week’s episode of The Key, Mays Imad, professor of pathophysiology and biomedical ethics and coordinator of the Teaching & Learning Center at Pima Community College, looks both back at what students and ...
Jul 08, 2021•39 min•Season 2Ep. 52
Listening to alternative points of view isn’t a particularly favored activity in many corners of society these days. But it remains one of the best ways – perhaps one of the only ways – of bridging the many divides (racial, economic, cultural) currently afflicting many aspects of our world. So argues Ronald A. Crutcher, president of the University of Richmond and author of I Had No Idea You Were Black: Navigating Race on the Road to Leadership (Clyde Hill Publishing). In this week’s episode of T...
Jun 29, 2021•40 min•Season 2Ep. 51
What skills, knowledge and abilities do students develop as they navigate through college? How do students themselves know, and how do institutions arm their graduates to show prospective employers what they know and can do? This week’s episode explores an effort to iterate beyond the academic transcript, which has historically been the main tool available to students, institutions and employers alike to sum up what’s gained during the college experience. And a not very effective one at that. In...
Jun 22, 2021•31 min•Season 2Ep. 50
The COVID-19 pandemic forced almost every college or university to make do without a physical campus at some point in the last 15 months. But many students and employees yearned to return, and most institutions anticipate resuming at least quasi-normal in-person operations this fall. But changes in how students learn and employees work will almost certainly compel most colleges and universities to reassess how they use their physical campuses – one of the many ways institutions may rethink how t...
Jun 16, 2021•41 min•Season 2Ep. 49
Students and state and federal governments alike are asking increasingly hard questions about the return on their investment in postsecondary education, as tuitions and debt grow. In this episode of The Key, which is sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, three experts with a diverse set of perspectives discuss the government role in ensuring value from academic institutions and programs: the complexity of any attempt to formally measure postsecondary value; the importance of focu...
Jun 09, 2021•41 min•Season 2Ep. 48
Most Americans say they pursue a degree or other credential after high school to improve their job or career prospects. So many efforts to judge the value of a college credential have focused exclusively on graduates’ income. A new report from the Postsecondary Value Commission expands that definition, considering other, longer-term economic measures (such as economic mobility and wealth) and recognizing the non-economic benefits that accrue to individuals and society when people get more postse...
May 26, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 47
Rapid growth in college debt and families’ out-of-pocket expenditures on higher education, along with complaints from employers about the preparedness of the people they hire, have intensified questioning about the value of postsecondary degrees and credentials. This week’s episode of The Key explores a report from a high-powered group of policy makers, college leaders, researchers and others that proposes a new way of judging whether colleges and programs are providing a good return on investme...
May 13, 2021•39 min•Season 2Ep. 46
Congress is considering expanding use of the federal government’s main postsecondary grant program to cover enrollment in training programs as short as eight weeks. Supporters – community college leaders, corporations and advocates for a more skilled workforce – believe the change is essential to serve tens of millions of Americans who don’t have the money or time for degree and other longer-term programs. Those who oppose “short-term Pell,” though, say proponents exaggerate the quality and valu...
Apr 28, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 45
