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This past April many community colleges across the county joined in celebrating Community College Month (#ccmonth). The Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT) coordinated a grassroots campaign to “increase awareness and understanding of the value of community colleges both locally and nationally.”  As we followed the celebration around the country, we wanted to share some highlights and takeaways from the great work these two-year institutions are doing.

After two years of being virtual, it was great to reconnect with HEUG colleagues in-person at Alliance.

Stealth applicants have always been a challenge for institutions. However, the pandemic amplified those challenges as institutions had to adapt processes, like going test-optional, and college fair and campus visit opportunities were limited due to pandemic-related restrictions and safety concerns. Although pandemic-related restrictions are being lifted, allowing more open on- and off-campus events, many institutions are not changing their test-optional policies.  

Spending nearly a decade as an enrollment management professional until recently, I experienced the challenge that the impending traditional enrollment cliff presents for universities and colleges. I was often faced trying to find solutions to the same recurring questions: 

Is your institution having challenges reaching your enrollment goals for certain groups of students?  Perhaps you have initiatives for online curriculum or competency-based education that are not getting traction. Your institution’s culture could be setting you up to fail and you may not even be aware of it. 

If you work in the higher education industry, you probably don't need a report to tell you that 2020 was a challenge for colleges and universities.  However, the most recent report put together by the National Student Clearinghouse (link here) gives insight into how COVID has affected enrollment in each type of school and demographic -- and it's not all doom and gloom.

Today, Business Insider had an opinion piece about Google's Career Certificates program, which allows non-degree learning to help people (especially people in IT) gain critical skills that can help them advance their careers.  In our blog, we've previously discussed how the higher education market is has recognized the opportunity growth of lifetime learning and the nontraditional student.  

Virtual Alliance 2020 is in the books.  Over the course of the week, we learned how to attend sessions from our homes, got to see where friends and colleagues worked, and was photobombed by toddlers and pets.  As expected, the overall theme was COVID-19 and how institutions are coping and planning.

This afternoon, CSU Chancellor Timothy P. White announced that with limited exceptions, virtual-only learning will continue through the fall term.  This means that close to 500,000 students won't be returning to campus until 2021 at the earliest.  However, that's just the tip of the iceberg.