College applicants still aren’t providing SAT or ACT scores at the same rate they were before the coronavirus pandemic, according to new data from the Common Application. 

Just 43% of applicants submitted entrance exam scores to Common App member institutions for the 2022-23 academic year. This is nearly the exact same share as the previous year, but far lower than prior to the pandemic. In 2019-20, nearly three-quarters of applicants sent colleges assessment results.

These trends follow a significant number of colleges switching to test-optional policies, which is reflected in the Common App data. Just 4% of their member colleges in 2022-23 mandated admission test scores, down from 55% in 2019-20.

The test-optional campaign has exploded in higher education. Once a burgeoning movement, test-optional was pushed into overdrive by the pandemic as common exam sites, like K-12 schools, closed.

Some institutions have taken up test-optional admissions temporarily, while others are adopting test-free policies, refusing to consider exam scores whatsoever.

Overall, more than 1,800 colleges are not requiring test scores for the fall 2023 admissions cycle, according to FairTest, an advocacy organization pushing for limited application of standardized assessments. That count includes colleges that have historically never asked for scores.

The data from the Common App — an online portal enabling students to apply to more than 1,000 participating colleges — shows the tests’ continued diminished role in admissions, despite pandemic restrictions waning.

The share of applicants sending in scores plummeted to 40% in the 2020-21 academic year, when stronger COVID-19 precautionary measures were in effect. To properly analyze year-over-year comparisons, the Common App only included in its new analysis the 841 institutions that participated in the 2019-20 academic year. 

Only 35% of students from the lowest income bracket sent in scores in 2022-23, roughly the same share as in the prior two years. In 2019-20, about 67% of lowest-income applicants provided scores. 

Experts say the SAT and ACT disadvantage low-income and other historically marginalized applicants the most, as they can’t afford the same extensive tutoring as their more affluent peers. Indeed, high exam scores correlate with wealth.

Nearly half of applicants in the highest income bracket delivered scores to colleges in 2022-23, according to the Common App. More than three-quarters of those applicants were providing scores in 2019-20.

Test submissions also varied by gender — 48% of men sent scores in 2022-23 versus only 40% of women. Almost equal shares of men and women — 75% and 73% respectively — furnished scores in 2019-20.

Community colleges are seeing signs of recovery after dramatic declines in enrollment over the pandemic, according to preliminary data released March 29 by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Enrollment at community colleges in spring 2023 grew by 2.1% over the previous year, largely due to increases in spring freshmen and dual enrollment. 

Undergraduate enrollment remained largely unchanged, rising only 0.2%. Yet the stability is considered good news, as the number of undergraduates had dropped significantly the previous two springs.

Public four-year colleges were the only institutions that continued to see a decline in spring enrollment, with a 0.9% decrease. But almost half of all students enrolled are at public four-year institutions, according to Doug Shapiro, executive director of the research center.

Enrollment at community colleges is still down 1.9% from spring 2021, according to the data. But the growth this year is a step in the right direction, Shapiro said during a call with reporters March 28.

"Community colleges have been the hardest hit sector since the start of the pandemic," he said. "They lost 3.9% last spring, and they are currently still down by roughly 14% from pre-pandemic levels. There's still a long way to go, but clearly, this is a nice sign of improvement."

In fact, in reporting on its "first look" findings, the center said, "community colleges may be turning the corner this spring after major pandemic declines.

Enrollment growth among the youngest students, the only age groups to see improvements, pushed up the numbers, according to the clearinghouse.

Enrollment grew among undergraduate students 17 years old and younger — typically students enrolled dually in community college and high school — whose numbers rose by 10.6% in spring 2023 from the previous year. Those ages 18 to 20 also rose, by 2.1%, over the same period. Every other age group saw undergraduate enrollment declines, with students ages 25 to 29 showing the sharpest enrollment decline, of 5.3%.

Among undergraduate students, Latinx students were the only racial or ethnic group to enroll in greater numbers this spring, up 0.9% year over year. White and Black student enrollment declined at rates of 4.9% and 1.6% respectively, while Asian student enrollment fell 0.4%.

Undergraduate enrollment of men, meanwhile, showed slight growth, compared to an almost equally slight decline for women. In spring 2023, there were 0.7% more undergraduate men year over year, compared to 0.9% fewer women. That echoes the gender imbalance from the previous year, when both groups lost students but enrollment among women undergraduates declined at almost double the rate for men.

Among graduate students, spring enrollment also declined overall in 2023, dropping by 1.2% from the year prior, after seeing gains at the start of the pandemic. Despite the recent loss, enrollment in that cohort remains above pre-pandemic levels, according to the data.

Shapiro noted that the results are preliminary, covering 54% of the institutions the clearinghouse typically analyzes. Final results are expected later this year.

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By FedEx Office

For many U.S. colleges and universities, driving enrollment is an uphill climb these days. Though digital channels have made it easier to reach a wider audience, they’ve also been black holes, with marketing messages dismissed and forgotten as students tune out the onslaught of digital noise. Curiously, one antidote to our modern plight is an old one: engaging the five senses.

Fueling recall and rapport with sensory engagement

Does the smell of pumpkin spice in fall make you think of Starbucks? That’s no accident, reported ThoughtCo. By appealing to senses instead of logic, sensory marketing affects consumers in ways that traditional marketing cannot the reference portal explained. Traditional marketing assumes that consumers systematically consider concrete factors such as price, features and utility. Sensory marketing — that is, marketing that engages touch, hearing, sight, smell and taste — deals with consumers’ life experiences and feelings.

That’s important because, as consumers, our buying decisions are largely based on emotional impulses. In fact, 95% of purchase decisions happen in the subconscious mind, reported UC Berkeley.

The smell of oranges or lavender, for instance, is found to calm the fears of anxious study subjects and merely touching an object creates a perceived sense of ownership, researchers found. Speaking of touching, there’s a ritual to opening a package: We pay attention to the feel of the material, the resistance it presents, the sound it makes and the way it opens to unveil a product.

“Such influences are subtle — and that’s exactly why they are so powerful,” explained the Harvard Business Review: “Consumers don’t perceive them as marketing messages and therefore don’t react with the usual resistance.”

Leaning on tested systems, trusted partners (bold this)

For time- and budget-strained higher education teams, the capabilities needed to pull off multisensory campaigns in-house often aren’t feasible. They’re also not necessary.

Instead, many colleges and universities turn to specialized partners to act as advisors and concierges orchestrating the creation of multisensory materials and experiences. FedEx Office is a leader in this space, with close ties to higher education since 1970, now with locations near most campuses across the nation.

At many universities, FedEx Office locations are within or near student centers, serving the campus community with a rich menu of services, including retail, signage, event materials, on-demand and large-scale commercial printing — even mailroom and parcel management in some schools.

Donna Kuppers, a regional commercial sales manager for FedEx Office, noted that many higher education customers want to create immersive, sensorial student experiences but can’t pinpoint what they want, what’s possible or what they can afford. In those cases, FedEx Office consultants help them identify a solution and bring it to life, relying on their nationwide network for items that might need to be delivered cross-country at a conference, for instance or fast-tracked at a large scale, as needed.

Multisensory tactics FedEx Office customers have used include custom boxes containing a personal video from the college president on one occasion and direct mail that included cookies from the dining hall. At one school, FedEx Office worked with the coaching staff to create and install a 70-foot-long wall graphic featuring student-athletes in motion, aiming to inspire students entering the gym. Wellness kits and hands-on learning tools for remote students have also been past hits.

“Our higher education customers are finding that sensorial experiences are important because one of the drivers for students choosing a school is having consistent, memorable experiences with the school community,” she explained. “Showing the connection between academics and student life and giving students and their parents a sense of belonging and identity alignment with the school can make all the difference in their decision to enroll,” she added.

Kuppers noted that sustaining student engagement was much like nurturing any relationship: It takes consistent touches. Aside from welcoming new students, other touch points — such as athletic events, move-in dates, homecoming celebrations and events, graduations, finals week, new program launches, alumni events and more — are opportunities to shape and reinforce student perceptions along their education journey.

In terms of tangible deliverables, multisensory experiences might involve tools ranging from flutter flags to branded gifts, direct mail, yard signs, wearables and more, looking for ways to activate more than one sense at a time. Dye sublimation, a technique for enhanced colors, durability and easy installation is an increasingly popular option for producing photogenic images on a variety of metal and fabric surfaces.

“In most cases, we have both sales and operations consultants that live and work in the local community. They work with schools to collaborate on ideas, educate them on solutions they might not know about and help them tackle budget concerns or estimate their return on spend,” Kuppers said. In doing so, many colleges and universities have been able to magnify their team capabilities and return on investment spend, with substantial savings to boot, Kuppers added.

Standing out in a crowded space

Want to be perceived as different, more welcoming and inclusive than competing institutions? That requires doing things differently, in more welcoming and inclusive ways.

As colleges and universities compete for a shrinking pool of students, a promising antidote to invisibility and irrelevance lies in time-tested strategies favored by viral brands: using the five senses to create experiences students will cherish, remember and favor.

Enrollment at Calbright College, in California, surpassed 2,000 students in March, almost double from where it stood a year ago — a significant milestone for an institution that state lawmakers as recently as last year sought to close.

Calbright, which awards certificates rather than degrees, attributes consistent enrollment increases to its emphasis on student-centered design, according to Mackenzie Smith, the college's communications director.

The college has seen strong gains since July 2021, when it had under 500 students, according to Calbright. Its student population reached 1,000 before slowing at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, from March to May 2022. But since July 2022, Calbright has added just over a hundred students a month.

The online-only institution has devised several strategies to make it easier for prospective students to enroll and access services. It redesigned its website and launched information sessions for prospective students, with roughly a third of attendees ultimately deciding to enroll, according to Smith.

Calbright, a public community college that is free to California residents, opened in 2019. It was created to boost economic mobility in the state and help working adults get credentials that will raise their earnings potential.

Almost all of Calbright's students, 92%, are 25 or older, with a median age in the late 30s, according to the college. And 1 in 3 students are caregivers, a demographic that faces increased obstacles to completing credentials.

Calbright awarded 110 certificates in 2022, compared to 43 in 2021, the college said. On average, students graduate in under a year, though it varies by program, Smith said.

Previous administrative hurdles

The enrollment and degree milestones are good news for Calbright, which has struggled with administrative issues since its launch.

Calbright's president and CEO resigned at the beginning of 2020, and the college avoided calls from state lawmakers to defund it later that year and in 2022. In 2021, a state audit recommended closing the institution if it didn't improve on metrics like student support services. 

Calbright's most recent improvements, however, failed to excite the California Federation of Teachers, according to its president, Jeff Freitas. The union represents more than 120,000 education employees in the state, including 30,000 who work at community colleges.

"We are not impressed with the numbers based on the extraordinary amount of money and resources that have been wasted on Calbright," Freitas said. "We continue to believe that Calbright is a waste of critical funding that belongs in our traditional community colleges, which are already doing a superior job of educating our students both in person and online."

Calbright received $15 million in annual funding from the California state budget, according to the college's budget summary for the 2022-2023 academic year. The state also granted Calbright $71 million in one-time start-up funding when it launched.

Following the auditor's report, CFT called for reinvesting Calbright's state funding into traditional community colleges.

California Assembly Member Sharon Quirk-Silva, who co-sponsored a bill to close Calbright in 2022, could not be reached for comment Monday.

But Gov. Gavin Newsom's administration applauded the enrollment milestone and remained firmly in favor of the college's mission.

“CalBright embodies California’s student-centered values — meeting working students where they are, expanding lifelong learning, and setting graduates up for success in a career," said Ben Chida, the governor's chief deputy cabinet secretary. "It’s exciting to see real lives being improved.”

Newsom has been a stalwart advocate of Calbright, as was his predecessor, former Gov. Jerry Brown, who helped found the college.

The pandemic’s effects continue to scramble college enrollments — particularly on the transfer side. Between fall 2020 and 2022, transfer enrollments fell nearly 7%, according to the latest data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

Some of the dropoff can be attributed to shrinking enrollment at community colleges. Four-year institutions are concerned with what’s known as upward transfers, a move to one of those campuses from a community college.

And upward transfers have experienced a steep decline since the onset of the pandemic, plunging 14.5%, translating to 78,500 fewer students.

Other types of transfers, like lateral moves between two- and four-year institutions, are rising, however.  

A common strategy for colleges facing enrollment and financial crunches is recruiting stopped-out students who could return for their degrees.

Institutions should have some reason for optimism then, as the share of students returning to college who transferred shot up by more than 5% year over year. This resulted in an overall 0.8% increase in returning student transfers since the pandemic began.

Noticeably, though, transfer enrollments among students who were still attending college have fallen by almost 12% since the pandemic’s onset.

Racial disparities are evident in clearinghouse data. Asian and White students experienced the largest transfer declines since the pandemic started — drops of 14.8% and 12.2%, respectively.

The transfer rate for students identified as races and ethnicities other than White, Latinx, Black, Asian or Native American rose 8% between fall 2020 and fall 2022.

Transfer patterns also vary by gender. Over two years, the share of men transferring shrunk by almost 4%, compared to the share of women, who saw a more than 9% decline in transfers. 

The same held true between fall 2021 and 2022 — women who transferred fell by 3.5%, versus not even a 1% decline among men.

The latest data did not include categories for transgender or nonbinary people.

Only the youngest college students — those ages 20 and under — were not affected by the stress on transfers. The share of those students transferring actually jumped by about 9% since the pandemic began, and it increased nearly 8% year over year from fall 2021.

The good news stops there. Colleges lost transfer students of all other ages. The most pronounced drop occurred among students ages 25 to 29 — transfers among that group declined by 20.5% between fall 2020 and 2022.

Upward transfer enrollments — students moving from two-year to four-year colleges — has plunged 14.5%, or 78,500 fewer students, since the onset of the pandemic, according to new National Student Clearinghouse Research Center data released March 9.

Those upward transfers continued to drop between fall 2021 and fall 2022, a 7.5% drop that translates to 37,600 fewer students. One of the steepest year-over-year declines from fall 2021 occurred among students transferring to highly selective institutions, a 13.4% drop representing 6,200 students.

However, in a bright spot for the higher education landscape, other types of transfers have begun to rise year over year. Lateral transfers between four-year institutions increased by 2%, lateral moves between two-year colleges rose by 0.3% and reverse transfers — students who shift from a four-year to two-year college — jumped by 1%.

Transfer enrollments overall have fallen by nearly 7% since fall 2020, with the biggest losses happening among students who were continuing — rather than returning to — their college education, an almost 12% drop.

These declines are part of colleges’ broader enrollment struggles spurred by the spread of COVID-19. Colleges have lost 1.2 million undergraduate students since the start of the health crisis, according to the National Student Clearinghouse, with the bulk disappearing from community colleges that face competition with a strong job market. 

The clearinghouse reported in February that the sector is just beginning to see hints of recovery with the year-over-year decline in undergraduates shrinking.

“Unlike the stabilization that we saw in the general enrollment numbers last month, the number of students who transferred in fall 2022 is continuing the downward slide it has been on since the pandemic began in 2020, and this is especially true for upward transfers,” Doug Shapiro, executive director of the clearinghouse’s Research Center, said in a statement. 

Shapiro noted on a call with reporters Wednesday that the overall transfer decline of 2.3% from fall 2021 to fall 2022 was steeper than the rate of enrollment decline among nontransfer students, which means “transfer continues to be more constrained, more difficult for students during the pandemic, than same-school enrollment.”

Clearinghouse officials said they were particularly concerned with the tumbling share of students transferring to a four-year college from suburban and urban community colleges. They characterized bachelor’s degree programs as being “increasingly out of reach” for students attending these two-year colleges. 

Upward transfers from suburban two-year institutions have sunk by 11%, or 16,300 fewer students, since fall 2021, and those from urban community colleges plummeted 8.8%, or 20,200 students.

Not all the news was doom and gloom though.

The share of students moving from a rural community college to a four-year college actually increased by 1.4% year over year.

And for the first time since the pandemic started, transfers from students who stopped out began to rise — by 5.4%. That equated to 26,800 more students between fall 2021 and fall 2022.

Transfers to primarily online institutions drove almost 40% of this growth, the clearinghouse said.

The number of students in public K-12 schools in fall 2021 fell 2% below projected levels, meaning about 833,000 fewer seats were filled and a higher education sector already bracing for an enrollment cliff now faces heightened risks.

Reports of students struggling in class amid the COVID-19 pandemic could also foreshadow the number of high school graduates falling more sharply after 2025 than was previously expected, according to a new report from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. 

Enrollment changes reflect some students shifting to homeschooling or private schools. But they also show particularly deep pandemic effects for several traditionally underserved racial and ethnic groups.

The K-12 pipeline's health has been a top concern for colleges since the pandemic started disrupting education in 2020. Struggling students today can mean lower high school graduation rates in the future — and most colleges overwhelmingly depend on high school graduates to build each fall's incoming class.

WICHE has become a go-to source of K-12 enrollment data and projections for college leaders who want to understand what future years are likely to bring. Its previous projections showed high school graduates peaking in 2025 and becoming much more diverse.

That prompted institutions to brace for what's sometimes called the enrollment cliff or demographic cliff. Some admissions officers and equity advocates reject those terms, arguing colleges should be able to overcome topline declines in the number of high school graduates by reaching students they have not traditionally enrolled in large numbers, such as low-income and non-White students. Others point out that changes in the number of students will be different in individual states and regions compared to the national level, and that demand for college varies greatly by an institution's market position.

Still, overall declines in K-12 students and high school graduates are generally regarded as downward pressure on the higher ed sector's enrollment and financial prospects.

That backdrop adds even more import to the new WICHE report, which was released Tuesday. The conclusions that it draws are limited — it says currently available data doesn't allow for the full effects of the pandemic to be known yet. But it nonetheless sketches a picture of where cracks have appeared in the K-12 pipeline.

The number of high school graduates for the classes of 2020 and 2021 were relatively stable, the report finds. That aligns with other research suggesting pandemic-era declines in college enrollment are driven by changing student behavior, not a drop in the number of high school graduates available to matriculate at colleges.

The WICHE report shows a bulge in 9th graders in fall 2021. Public schools' 9th-grade enrollment grew by 4%, or 152,200 students, between fall 2020 and fall 2021. That's about twice the rate of a year-over-year increase that had been expected for the cohort of students.

The change could reflect students reenrolling in public schools after homeschooling or turning to private schools in 2020. But WICHE also flagged evidence that more students repeated 9th grade after failing to move on to 10th grade.

"Concerningly, research indicates that students who get off the educational track in 9th grade are less likely to eventually graduate," the report says.

Indicators from middle schools raise even more flags. Public schools' enrollment of 6th, 7th and 8th graders fell by 2% in fall 2021, a sharper decline than an expected 1.4% decrease. Spring 2022 test scores show middle schoolers struggling more than younger students during the pandemic and failing to recover as quickly. Their math skills were hit particularly hard.

Enrollment in grades 1 to 5 recovered between fall 2020 and fall 2021 to resemble projected levels, WICHE found. But it again flagged declines in learning proficiency.

"If these factors were to remain unchanged, over time, this could compound future higher education enrollment challenges," the report says.

Some public school enrollment declines might reflect increased private school or homeschool enrollment. That could be a boost to certain colleges that traditionally recruit heavily from private and homeschool populations. But the WICHE report cautions that it's difficult to measure those students' numbers and academic prowess, and that it's not clear if pandemic-driven shifts will stick in the future.

WICHE also broke down enrollments by race and ethnicity. Available data suggested public school enrollment fell faster than expected for White non-Hispanic students, Black non-Hispanic students, Asian non-Hispanic students, and Native Hawai‘ian and other Pacific Islander non-Hispanic students.

"Pandemic impacts on historically underserved student populations could be a leading cause of potential disruption to the predicted number of U.S. high school graduates," the report says.

Undergraduate enrollment declined 0.6% in the fall 2022 term, marking yet another year-over-year decrease — but one that is the smallest yet since the pandemic began, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. 

Enrollment remains well below pre-pandemic levels. Since the health crisis broke out, higher education institutions have shed around 1.2 million undergraduates. Small increases in the number of graduate students over the period helped blunt some of the declines, though this trend appears to be fading. 

Public four-year colleges had the largest undergraduate enrollment decline, 1.4%, totaling about 88,000 students. That was followed by four-year private nonprofits, whose enrollment was essentially flat with a 0.1% decline, representing a loss of 2,500 students. 

The preliminary figures offer hope that undergraduate enrollment losses are beginning to stabilize. Enrollment growth of first-year students was particularly strong, with 97,000 more enrolling in college in fall 2022 compared to the year before, representing a 4.3% increase. 

That was true across institution types. Four-year for-profits saw the largest growth among this population, of 6.9%, followed by community colleges, which saw a 6.1% increase. Public four-year colleges had a 3.9% rise in first-year students, while four-year private nonprofits saw more modest growth of 1.8%. 

“It’s very encouraging to start seeing signs of a recovery here, even though there’s still a long way to go before freshmen classes return to their 2019 levels,” said Doug Shapiro, the research center’s executive director, during a call with reporters Wednesday. 

In fall 2019, colleges enrolled almost 2.5 million first-year students. In fall 2022, that number fell to about 2.3 million, meaning the first-year population was still around 6% below pre-pandemic levels. 

Graduate enrollment has also started declining after two years of strong growth. In fall 2022, it fell 1.2%, representing about 39,000 students. That comes after it increased 3% in 2020 and 2.4% in 2021. 

“Initially, in the pandemic, we saw declines among undergraduates but growth among graduate students,” Shapiro said. “We’re now seeing the end of that growth trend at the graduate level and some slight declines among graduate program enrollments.” 

Four-year for-profits bore the brunt of those declines, with graduate enrollment falling 3.1% year over year at those institutions. Four-year private nonprofits also saw a substantial decrease of 1.6%. Graduate enrollment at four-year public colleges was mostly flat, falling by 0.3%. 

Enrollment trends played out differently across the U.S. 

The Midwest had the steepest undergraduate declines, with year-over-year enrollment losses reaching 1.2%. The Northeast had a similar decline of 1.1%. The South and West saw small increases, of 0.2% and 0.5%, respectively.

But these same trends didn’t hold true for graduate programs. The Northeast, which had a notable undergraduate decline, saw the largest growth in graduate student enrollment, of 1.3%. Meanwhile, the Midwest and the West saw the largest declines, with each region clocking a 0.8% decline.

College admissions remains volatile in 2023. Massive shifts — like a widely expected ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that would restrict race-conscious admissions — threaten to stretch an already overworked field.

To keep up with the rapidly changing environment, we posed one question to six experts: What admissions trend do you expect to see in 2023?

Their written responses are below, lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

Though many students attend community college intending to transfer to a four-year institution, few actually end up earning a bachelor’s degree. Now, researchers are embarking on a two-year initiative to dig deeper into that dynamic, disaggregating statistics by race and ethnicity to find practices that can help colleges improve their outcomes. 

The project is a collaboration between the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program, Belk Center for Community College Leadership and Research, College Futures Foundation, Community College Research Center, ECMC Foundation and Kresge Foundation to update a 2016 publication looking at transfer outcomes. Tania LaViolet, director of bachelor’s attainment at the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program, and John Fink, senior research associate at the Community College Research Center, are leading the project. They answered questions about what they hope to achieve. 

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. 

HIGHER ED DIVE: You say that only 11% of low-income community college students transfer and get a bachelor's degree, but we don't know the national and state outcomes for transfer students of color. Why is that?

TANIA LaVIOLET: We know that the vast majority of community college students aim to get a bachelor's degree. Survey after survey, year after year, it's about 80% of entering community college students. What the data show overall is that only about one-third of entering community college students will transfer to a four-year institution, and only about 15% to16%, depending on the year, of that entering cohort will eventually get a bachelor's degree six years later. 

When we first started doing these analyses, with the 2007 entering cohort of community college students, the National Student Clearinghouse, who's a partner in this work and provider of the data, did not have enough coverage in the data to disaggregate it by race and ethnicity — enough to do income, but not race/ethnicity. 

Now that data is available, that coverage is available. And so part of the reason we're doing this now is to be able to report those outcomes disaggregated by income and by race and ethnicity, in order to shine the light on where there may be inequities. We're also going to be publishing the data broken out by state, so that we can see which states are doing well, which states have some work to do, and where we might be able to learn from those that are doing well, especially for students of color and lower-income students.

How will your research be conducted? 

JOHN FINK: This is a two-part project. We were just talking about the first part, which is mostly partnering these three organizations — CCRC, Aspen and the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center — working together, looking at this quantitative data.

But it's a sort of like, “Wait, but that's not all!” What we found in our original 2016 report, and what you typically find, is that even within a state, there's a lot of variation. Some colleges are doing much better than others. And you can look at that in terms of the pair performance — the transfer outcomes between a particular community college and a particular university. 

What we're going to do with this updated data is find and identify the best community college-university partnerships across the country that have the strongest transfer outcomes for students of color, and then we're going to reach out and learn from those partnerships: What are you doing that might explain these really strong outcomes for Black and Hispanic students and low-income students? 

We're going to do fieldwork. Some sites we'll visit virtually, others in person. We’ll speak to folks at the community college, at the universities, meet the students, faculty, administrators, and really learn and produce this into an updated set of recommendations and findings in this transfer playbook.

How are you going to try to make sure that this research is used by college leaders?

LaVIOLET: Through Aspen, we have networks of literally hundreds of four-year institutions and community colleges, working to advance stronger and more equitable community college transfer student outcomes. We're going to get this research into their hands. It's open-access research. Anybody who is interested in doing this work, this will be available to them. 

We’ve found that transfer needs to be led by presidents and senior leadership. We are really going to be targeting this research to senior leadership, so they understand the importance of transfer to talent development, to achieving more equitable access and success for students, and then making sure that they have a roadmap for their campuses to do the work and to support those stronger outcomes.

FINK: After that first playbook, one of the key partners in using that were states themselves. So we anticipate similarly the states being key partners in supporting their institutions.

We're really focused too on producing tools, things like taking our findings and putting it into the format of an institutional self assessment, like a rubric. Or data templates or instructions. We've put those up on our website as Word documents and say, “Please download them, put your own logos on them, change them, but really use this to build your own reform efforts.”

LaVIOLET: What we hope is that in the next edition of the transfer playbook is that institutions across the nation, regardless of context, will be able to find themselves in the research and find some nugget in there that they can apply on their campuses to improve systems for students.

To what extent are the poor transfer rates we're seeing an institutional problem? Students face a lot of barriers in their lives. What is the role of the institution in helping them achieve their goals?

FINK: What we found from the first tracking transfer report was institutional practices really matter. We looked within all these different types of institutions, but then, you see some variation even in similar contexts. When you see all this variation, I think it suggests that what colleges are doing really matters in terms of making a change and improving student outcomes. 

There's just all sorts of barriers that are placed along the way of the transfer student experience at the community college, things like the onboarding process and getting connected, not enough support or funding for community colleges. And then, after the point of transfer, barriers in terms of encountering nonreceptive cultures and having an effect on students' sense of belonging. 

LaVIOLET: Only a small proportion, from what we can see in the data, of the students are actually transferring, even though they've done their part. So why is that? My hunch is that that is because of the complexity and the challenges and the institutional barriers that John was referencing. 

Is there anything else you want to say?

LaVIOLET: Community college transfer can be a catalyst of individual opportunity and mobility. Leaders across higher education are beginning to see its importance in talent development for their local communities, their regions and their states. We hope that this research will help support those efforts, because of the opportunity at hand not just for students, but for our country.

The first half of 2022 was the best time in years to be looking for work. 

Jobs were plentiful and companies were hiring. Wages soared (although inflation surged right alongside them). The nation’s unemployment rate hovered at a low not seen in five decades. Most industries recovered all of the jobs lost — and then some — since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic more than two years ago. 

But this American recovery shows signs of faltering. Interest rates are rising, the U.S. economy is slowing and a recession might be on the horizon if not already here. The number of job openings across the country is starting to fall. Major tech companies — an economic bellwether for years — have announced layoffs and hiring freezes. 

If the U.S. economy contracts over the next year or two, as a majority of experts anticipate, there will be an enormous need for education and training. Workers will want to reskill and retrain for a reshaped world of work. Colleges and universities will have a critical role to play in getting Americans back to work and on a path toward more stable careers.

The 39 million Americans with some college but no credential will be the key to recovery, and colleges and universities must redouble their efforts to get these learners back in school and on a path toward new careers. When the labor market tightens, credentials will be crucial, and these learners are already partway to degrees and certificates that will give them an edge in landing family-sustaining jobs and careers.

But traditional higher education has long struggled to address the needs of adult learners, many of whom had to put a pause on finishing their degrees when life happened. Whether adult learners are returning after five years, 10 years, or decades, they are navigating more than academics. They are juggling academic life with work and family responsibilities. 

About 80% of college students work at least part time while enrolled, and one in five students are parents. If higher education is to better serve this growing population — and bolster enrollment in the process — we must start with understanding adult learners to provide the support they need for success.

Address time poverty

Adult learners have little time to devote to their studies. Students caring for preschool-aged children, for example, have just 10 spare hours each day — including time when they should be sleeping. Considering the lack of flexibility most adult learners have with their work hours, it’s easy to see why this population struggles to accommodate a traditional college schedule. Higher education must provide support services, scheduling and course modality to meet adult learners in those fleeting moments they can focus on their education. And it must make sure those services are flexible.

Align with career needs

The majority of working learners are attending college to advance their careers, and many are not looking for the traditional four-year experience. 

They need an experience that is not only mapped to industry demands but that provides easy on-ramps and off-ramps — such as stackable credentials — that allow them to gain new skills and quickly put them to use.

Make it human

Navigating higher education can be a scary, daunting and lonely experience, especially when so much of the system is not designed for adult learners. But there are ways to make a difference to this student population: relevant and regular communication that speaks to the adult learner experience, websites that are designed specifically for returning students, and personalized support that considers academics in the context of reaching personal and career goals. 

How do I know all this? Not only have I focused my career on supporting adult learners, but I was an adult learner myself. 

I dropped out of school at 17 and understand that the road to enrolling in college as an adult, let alone graduating with a degree or credential, is littered with hurdles. After dropping out of high school, my return to the world of education was neither an easy decision nor an easy journey. As more adults consider returning to school to advance their careers, finish what they started or gain new skills, we need to reimagine the higher education experience with adult learners in mind.