Change is in the Ivy...

The architecture of ivy-decked privilege is on the wane.

In this season of caps and gowns, change is afoot. The architecture of ivy-decked privilege is ceding ground to a still-evolving but more accessible and affordable vision of higher ed … the community college, one which emphasizes acquisition of life skills.

My private college tuition in 1968 was $2,800, 55 years later in Vermont the average private university tuition is $50,094. College cost has maxed out in the last 20 years. Average private-college tuition and fees are up 144%; out-of-state tuition and fees at public colleges have risen 165%. Bennington College tuition for international students is $90,452; Dartmouth next door is $90,813. In total, 42.7 million student borrowers have federal loan debt with an average balance of $38,375. % and U.S. college student debt now totals $1.777 trillion. Privilege is expensive.

To be fair, all colleges offer some degree of scholarship funding that can diminish their tuition charges. The difference between the average rate paid by all attending students after scholarship and grant funding compared to full tuition is called the “discount rate” and different colleges have different “discount” rates depending on their available scholarship resources.

Still, for those who must measure student debt against educational and future employment value, the value equation for college is diminishing. Demographically, there are fewer college-bound students, many are reluctant to acquire crippling debt, and those remaining are either privileged and thus undeterred by high tuitions. Vermont’s eligible higher-ed population has declined from 120,000 to 88,000 in the last three decades and only about half of Vermont high school graduates go on to college. Expanding college to more flexible life-long learning may also help offset the demographic decline among traditional high school graduates.

The Pew Research Center finds that now only one in four Americans say having a bachelor's degree is “extremely” or “very important” in getting a good job. Among high school graduates, the proportion going straight to college has fallen from a peak of 70% in 2016 to 62% in 2022, the most recent year for which the figure is available.

Business is increasingly by-passing college-degree requirements in its recruitment. Private colleges and universities have traditionally depended on wealthy foreign applicants to boost their market discount rates, current White House xenophobic policies have reduced the pool of foreign applications. Also, statistics about college graduation rates and future income expectations are skewed by luminary exceptions like Bezos, Jobs, Gates, Zuckerberg.

The post-secondary education market is changing. The educational goals of students have been in transition from traditional STEM and liberal arts pedagogy towards more dynamic and segmented learning related to current or future employment goals, personal interests, and the certainty of more frequent career changes. Lectures, note-taking, labs, and exams are increasingly less relevant to a new generation of students who prefer engagement, experience, and internships as they learn. Low-residency and online learning are creating more flexible and innovative educational delivery systems, too.

Colleges that ignore these headwinds and don’t rethink traditional college governance, tenure for faculty, and the idea that college is a finite experience rather than a life-long endeavor while relying on philanthropy to offset operating losses, will soon learn that charity can’t shore up an eroding value equation. This kind of preemptive change is disruptive, but the best teachers and educational institutions will survive and thrive. It will not be easy, but institutions that understand changing economic and demographic patterns and are willing to reconfigure faculty, administration, and governance relationships and focus on their core excellence will weather the storm.

We’ve seen fallout here in Vermont as colleges shutter their classrooms and dorms: Burlington College (2016), College of St. Joseph (2019), Green Mountain College (2019), Southern Vermont College (2019), Marlboro College (2020), The New England Culinary Institute (2021) Goddard College (2024), and Castleton University, Northern Vermont University, and Vermont Tech merged into Vermont State University in 2023.

But we in Vermont have a navigational paragon for the future of higher ed -- the Community College of Vermont (CCV).

At CCV, full scholarship funds are available to many through 802 Opportunity funded by the State of Vermont and administered through the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation (VSAC). 802 Opportunity is available to families whose total income is less than $100,000, making it available to some 70% of Vermont applicants. In-state tuition at CCV is $6,920 and out-of-state tuition is $13,640, but 94% are Vermonters. In the last academic year, nearly 2,800 (over half) of CCV’s 5454 students received full tuition support from 802 Opportunity.

But the best colleges not only teach students, they learn from them, a defining element in CCV’s growth and success. 74% of CCV students have part- or full-time jobs. 81% are enrolled part-time and over 50% are the first in their family to attend college.

Although scholarship funding is as much a challenge in community colleges as it is in private college and universities, a significant deterrent to graduation has been “basic-needs insecurity” – issues like reliable transportation, childcare, rent, personal health, having a laptop and access to wifi, as well as the anxiety and exhaustion of living with financial insecurity while trying to study. Some 61% of community college students report varying degrees of basic-needs insecurity.

CCV’s “Life Gap” program was a direct outgrowth of CCV students’ real-life experiences, providing just-in-time grants of up to $600 to help them pay for unexpected emergency needs like:

• Transportation (car repairs, fuel)

• Technology (computer repairs, internet access)

• Housing and food security

• Unexpected healthcare costs

• Childcare expenses

Typically, when unexpected emergencies arise, students have little choice but to interrupt their course work or drop out until those needs are met. The program began in 2017 with 92 students; the average grant was $181. In the last academic year, 344 students received help (on-average $480) and the Life Gap fund has grown from $16,500 at its inception to over $200,000 -- all funded philanthropically. For many students the grants were the difference between continuing their studies or dropping out.

"There were some points where I kept thinking, oh, I'm going to quit halfway through the semester because I just can't do it. I have to do something else to raise some funds to pay for this [car repair]." – Rachel

"Honestly, I don't like to admit that without the grant I wouldn't have been able to finish classes until I graduated, because my education is really important to me. But something like transportation would have undermined my ability to get to work and my ability to pay for my rent and my food." - Eleanor

The Life Gap program’s emergency microgrants provide:

• Real-time relief from financial stress

• The ability for students to focus on learning

• A chance for them to transform their lives through education

With Federal Pell Grants under severe threat from the current administration, the impact of the Life Gap program on students is revolutionary, as it is for CCV which sees greater student retention and engagement as well as community recognition for its understanding of what constitutes an educational community. We traditionally measure colleges using intellectual criteria and outcomes data, whereas the largest contributor to success often resides in the institutional culture of the learning community itself. The Life Gap program conveys the fundamental message to its community of learners that they are valued.

"There's a bunch of beautiful souls out there that just want to see us be productive adults in society. It's like, here's a lift-up, not a hand-out" (Mary)

Special thanks to Heather Weinstein, a doctoral candidate at Northern Illinois University and current Dean of Strategic Initiatives at Community College of Vermont who offered factual data about the success of the CCV Life Gap program.

• Bill Schubart