Access And Selectivity

I've been looking more closely at community colleges and the ways in which they seem to have quietly figured out the false access vs. selectivity dichotomy that private universities like to prop up as a dilemma they publicly express resolve to address.

I think because they're just built differently, community colleges have been able to effectively shatter the traditionally narrow treatment of access through alternative credentials. We're seeing daily stories about how community colleges are launching applied credentials designed to stand-alone AND to readily stack into higher order credentials. A student can complete a welding certificate, walk into a job, and then return to apply the certificate to an associate degree or another advanced cert without having to take unnecessary courses and clear archaic curriculum hurdles. I'm watching this access strategy turn community colleges in my state into true higher ed on ramps, not as backup options for students who couldn't get into the university across town.

I've also watched with dismay and frustration too many private universities manipulate the word "access" to fit some ridiculous claim about being a place where everyone is welcome. I've sat in rooms with senior leaders at some genuinely prestigious, carefully branded private institutions and listened to them say, with a straight face, that their universities are accessible because they offer online degree completion programs. That's the whole of their treatment of access. Move the curriculum to the cloud and call it accessible. The part that so many of these (maybe) well-intentioned academic leaders choose to leave unaddressed is that an online degree is still a three, four, six year commitment. And it's still priced like a private education (because it is one), thereby not being accessible to anyone whose life doesn't align with the agrarian calendar or who can't afford a $90,000 credential.

For me, creating greater access to higher education has never been about delivery modalities. Nobody's life ever got easier because they did the exact same four year degree from their dining room table instead of a lecture hall. I've always treated access as an outcome. Can the person with a full time job, a kid, and forty five minutes free at ten at night actually complete a credential they can use? Not something they'll be able to use in three years, but something they can apply next month.

I had a conversation a few years ago with a scholar and administrator I respect a lot, someone who's successfully led in higher education and thinks hard about what universities are actually for. But one comment from that conversation has stuck with me. "You can't sell selectivity and inclusion out of the same brochure," they said. The misguided claim they were making is that access and selectivity are mutually exclusive for universities with brands and reputations built on selectivity. So many of these places have spent decades building (perceived) prestige on who they keep out. How could they possibly pivot to "we're truly accessible" without gutting the thing people are paying for?

So I'm trying to imagine what would happen if a private university actually tried to implement the community college access model. Could they successfully break their degrees apart the way community colleges can? And not into disconnected piles of random one-off credentials scattered around with no relationship to each other! You would think that there's a progressive private university out there that could actually knock out applied, market relevant credentials that stack easily and readily into a full degree. Then price the whole thing honestly and stop measuring success one degree at a time. If a working adult takes one applied credential, gets a raise, and never comes back for the degree, that's success.