Dialogue between a teacher and an administrator as school opens in 2024:

The above dialogue is based on an actual situation, and it is emblematic of the reality that administrators far too often do not listen to the voices of teachers. The result is that many teachers feel alienated and disrespected. More than half say they are thinking about leaving the profession, and 86 percent of public schools reported difficulties hiring new teachers last year.

Yet, most teachers care about their students and want to enable them to succeed. That leaves the teachers who remain conflicted. They say to themselves: Do I leave for my own wellness, or do I stay for my students?

During the height of the pandemic, teachers were forced to rebuild the education plane as it was flying, often without supervision and adequate training or feedback opportunities. But here’s a key insight: Teachers developed creative and sometimes novel solutions to problems they encountered daily. They found ways for education to continue despite vast challenges. That’s the good news.

Related: Widen your perspective. Our free biweekly newsletter consults critical voices on innovation in education.

Now the bad news. When schools reopened, far too few administrators inquired about these new approaches, and were often unaware of them. School leaders failed to create opportunities to hear from and listen to their teachers both while they were off-site and when they were back on-site. This meant that positive changes developed during the pandemic were not carried forward, and the conversation centered on educational failures during the pandemic. This isn’t a problem of the past; it persists.

My co-author and I heard these observations as part of research we conducted for our new book, “Mending Education: Finding Hope, Creativity, and Mental Wellness in Times of Trauma.” During the pandemic and through 2023, we spoke with dozens of educators across the nation. During a weeklong period in June 2023, we also surveyed more than 150 pre-K to 12th grade teachers across the U.S. to capture their pandemic experiences and understand their situations.

What we learned is that teachers summoned remarkable creativity and ingenuity to navigate the continual crises with their students. Importantly, they wanted the best of the changes they created to be retained in the non-online school setting.

Related: PROOF POINTS: Some of the $190 billion in pandemic money for schools actually paid off

No one denies that there were many educational setbacks in the pandemic years; counterintuitively though, there were many positives. Sadly, these positives have not been adopted, replicated and scaled; they have been ignored as remnants of the pandemic. The result: Our schools have not improved in ways that would have been possible post-pandemic.

Take these two examples.

First, the pandemic paused standardized testing at the state and federal levels. Yet teachers, many of whom had been frustrated by the stress and limitations of testing, found new and improved ways to assess student learning. They turned to approaches such as allowing students to make oral or visual presentations (with video or illustrations) of their learning or to present portfolios with examples of their work like essays and quizzes and projects. Instead of relying on a single point in time score, educators were able to assess, and then share with families, students’ individual progress. Many of our survey respondents and other teachers with whom we worked were delighted with the changed approaches. Students were less anxious (teachers too). Teachers told us that when learning was not measured by a single score but rather in ways that captured student progress, learning outcomes improved.

Second, because learning was largely remote, traditional forms of discipline (expulsion, suspension, removal from class, timeouts) could not be used. Survey respondents and other teachers shared that they found ways to engage disengaged or disruptive students. They used breakout rooms and chatrooms to work with subgroups of students. They created group projects to enable students to learn about teamwork and peer support. They did exercises that enabled students to regulate and reregulate themselves by identifying their feelings, a strategy that benefited all students, not just those who were struggling overtly. They visited the homes of students and taught from driveways and through windows. They reached out via text or email to families to share problems and strategize about solutions.

Those changes could have continued after the pandemic. But for them to stick would have required decision-makers to listen in real time to the experiences of those working in the trenches with our students. So far, that hasn’t happened. Instead, we reopened schools as if we could return to what existed pre-pandemic; we tried to force a return to a prior “normal” that no longer exists. In short: Opportunity knocked, teachers responded and then changes were abandoned.

We are paying a high price for these failures to recognize teachers’ voices. We cannot educate from the top down or sideways in. Educational improvement comes at the micro, meso and macro levels — if we are sufficiently respectful of and open to the voices of those to whom we entrust our children. We must listen and learn from our teachers. If we do, we all stand to benefit.

Karen Gross, an author, educator and artist, is a former college president and senior policy advisor to the U.S. Department of Education; she currently serves as a continuing education instructor at Rutgers School of Social Work. 

Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.

This story about post-pandemic education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

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Our students are traumatized. They are living with fear and confusion. They are experiencing or witnessing police violence, rioting and looting. And schools, a place where children typically process events and emotions, are shuttered.

What are children to do? Who will acknowledge, understand and respond to their trauma and its accompanying symptomology? Who’s there to enable our students to understand racism and violence, and to mitigate the lack of certainty in our world? Who will lead our children forward with hope for a better tomorrow, a world in which we protect our Black and Brown children?

Let’s begin by understanding how we got to this spot.

Related: OPINION: With schools closed in Minnesota, Black students again struggle with ‘hurt, heartache and trauma’

Prior to the pandemic and the most recent instances of police brutality, America’s students were already traumatized. In addition to family-based trauma, homelessness and food insecurity, children were living through the aftermath of natural disasters and school shootings.

We needed to respond and help them. We were only just recognizing the need for, and the value of, trauma responsiveness. Then, in the blink of an eye, the coronavirus pandemic struck and our world changed.

Schools closed with lightning speed; online learning was instituted as a solution, but it hasn’t been a panacea for many learners. Children were cut off from the structure, stability and safety that schools provide. Teacher engagement was drastically reduced; students were not gaining valuable psychosocial development.

“We need to care about all children, not just the children we have in our own families or who look like us …”

People were wearing masks and social-distancing, and stay-at-home orders became the norm. There were regular news accounts of people getting ill and some dying, including a disproportionate percentage of minorities. And make no mistake about it: Home life for many children wasn’t warm and welcoming.

Then, as if we hadn’t had enough strife, yet another African American man was killed by a white police officer. Peaceful protests for a nation sorely needing greater racial harmony and equality morphed into violence in some locales.

A visibly increased presence of armed officers and military became the new norm. Tear gas, rubber bullets, barriers and riot gear have become omnipresent.

For our many Black and Brown children, the threats to their physical safety now and into the future are eating away at their insides.

Related: How trauma and stress affect a child’s brain development

It is at moments like these that we realize the true value of our schools.

Were our schools open, they would give our children much-needed support.

Students would have access to adults who could help them process what is occurring and provide ways to ameliorate their terror.

Students would have opportunities to talk to their peers and experience racial solidarity.  They would have a place where they could protest and express anger in relative safety. They would have an increased sense of control and structure.

Don’t get me wrong: Schools are not a cure-all for racial discrimination. They are not hotbeds of equality. They are not perfect places. Teachers are not all experts at addressing racism and trauma.

But, schools are an alternative to chaos. At a minimum, schools provide a space and place to congregate, engage and use words to communicate feelings. Being able to name what is happening is a key first step.

Here’s one way to move forward: As we plan for school reopenings, we can seize the opportunity to reduce the immense challenges that children were, and still are, experiencing. At the moment, though, too few educators have focused on student trauma and mental well-being; they are focused instead on pragmatics like controlling disease spread and appropriate grade-levels for returning students.

Who will lead us, if schools cannot? We need to look elsewhere for leaders and role models, and sadly I see neither. As a product of the 1960s, I distinctly remember protests, from Kent State and the Democratic Convention to the marches. And what comes to mind immediately, in addition to enduring protest songs, are the remarkable leaders and role models.

I remember leaders who offered calm. I remember leaders who expressed outrage at unnecessary war. I remember leaders who fought for and spoke passionately about racial justice. These were men and women of all races. Their voices were passionate; they — including leaders within academic institutions — used the bully pulpit. These people were not just tending their own gardens; they were tending the gardens of our nation.

Things are different now, but children still need role models.

Children need adults who can convey calm. They need to believe that adults can help restore order. They need to know that adults will fight for solutions to what ails our nation. They need to see adults pressing forward; they need adults whom they can respect.

Our leaders aren’t doing this. Some key leaders in Washington, D.C., are anti-role models. They are inflammatory. They don’t speak the truth. They remain silent when words are needed.

The answer to the question of who is helping our children if parents and schools cannot is frighteningly simple: no one. And that is one reason, despite all of the risks, for reopening schools as soon as possible.

We need to care about all children, not just the children we have in our own families or who look like us, as political scientist Robert Putnam pointed out. We need to care about all children because it is children who will forge our collective future.

If the effects of the pandemic and racial disparities and the accompanying anger and violence are not addressed in both the near and longer terms, we will have another calamity on our hands: already-traumatized children becoming even more traumatized. 

That’s not acceptable.

This story about young people and trauma was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up here for Hechinger’s newsletter.

Karen Gross, an author and educator specializing in student success and the effects of trauma on psychosocial development, is a former college president and U.S. Department of Education policy adviser. Her most recent book is “Trauma Doesn’t Stop at the School Door: Strategies and Solutions for Educators, PreK-College.”

The post OPINION: ‘For our many Black and Brown children, the threats to their physical safety now and into the future are eating away at their insides’ appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

“Crybullies,” “entitled whiner syndrome,” “spoiled sense of entitlement … ”

Since the start of the student protests on the University of Missouri campus that included a hunger strike by a graduate student and a sit-out by the Tigers’ football team, negative, demeaning and offensive comments have been hurled at student participants.

It is as if folks assume that being enrolled in college or university is such a privilege that one parks one’s capacity to criticize at the door.

Is the concept of students speaking up and out, asking for racial equality and harmony or improvements to the institution they attend verboten today?

Related: Amid national diversity protests, community college students dare to dream of debt-free life

Stated differently, it strikes me that what folks are saying is: be quiet and thankful and go about your own life. It is rude and disrespectful, the argument goes, to get angry and exercised when one is fortunate enough (privileged enough) to be a college student, earning a degree and pursuing a pathway to future economic success.

The criticism of the Mizzou graduate student who went on a hunger strike has been wicked – pointing out that he comes from family wealth. Did his privilege mean he is barred from protesting or challenging authority? Do we really expect or want students to be “tame” and “compliant” and “respectful” even in the face of events, conduct and actions that are offensive, culturally inappropriate and racially insensitive – both in reality and as perceived? And, if the students perceive affronts that others of us do not perceive similarly, are we so sure our reactions are right? Who judges what is offensive?

I have been equally disquieted by many of the comments surrounding the more recent defacing of portraits of African American faculty at Harvard Law School. Instead of outrage, some commentators have been downright calm while others have suggested that the minority students at the institution are responsible in an effort to create added evidence of racism at Harvard Law School. Seriously?

Related: Yale students break through generations of pained black silence

As a product of the 60’s – when many protests turned sadly into violence and were accompanied by arrests – I have been disappointed by the absence of student protests over the past decades. Students need to learn to fight for what is right and fair and just, most especially those in positions of privilege whether of their own making or inherited. The alternative – silence in the face of wrongs – has a long and horrific history, of which the Holocaust is but one example.

I refuse to believe that our campuses are such paradigms of racial, ethnic and gender equality that we can afford to just “go along” calmly and without dissent. Anyone who has been on any campus knows there are inequities of all sorts. Just look and listen to the students of all ages, races, ethnicities and genders.

If we want a world in which we treat all people with decency, let’s not strip our students of their capacity to protest. Privilege does not demand that. Students can shout and levy charges; they can peacefully demonstrate; they can get angry over inequities. In fact, the two lessons referenced above tell me that students in college today are privileged (each in different ways to be sure) and with that privilege comes enormous responsibility to lead the charge for a better world. As educators, we can and should ask our students to use their “privilege” positively.

Related: Surprised that college football players tackled bigotry on campus? Here’s why you shouldn’t be

When I became a college president, I was fortunate to spend time with one of the college’s major donors. Once, after I thanked her for her remarkable generosity, she turned to me and said: “Remember, I did not earn all this money; I inherited it. But, my parents always reminded me that with this wealth comes equally if not larger responsibilities and obligations to give back to others in ways that have meaning.”

Her words have also stayed with me; they have informed how I reflect on my own money and asking for donations. They have guided me as I reflect on the deep duty that accompanies (or at least should accompany) privilege for those with abundant resources. These are important lessons.

Folks, in the recent peaceful incidents on America’s campuses, the students are not whining; they are not being disrespectful; they are not being selfish. No, they are doing precisely with what we need for them to do with their privilege: improve the world we all inhabit and promote a brighter and better world for their children and our grandchildren to inherit.

That is, and should be, the obligation and responsibility of privilege.

Karen Gross is the former president of Southern Vermont College and former senior policy advisor for the U.S. Department of Education. She is currently senior counsel at Widmeyer Communications.

The post What we’re getting wrong about campus protests appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

Aided by a White House strongly supportive of vulnerable-student success, Education Secretary Arne Duncan accomplished a great deal for low-income students during his tenure.

But not every initiative has been a success.

First, let me highlight four particularly noteworthy areas of achievement.

At the top of the list, the Pell program has grown substantially under the secretary’s watch; with the help of his team, approximately four million more Pell eligible students receive these grants.

Related: What Arne Duncan did to American education and whether it will last

The amount of money available for individual Pell recipients has increased as has the overall government expenditure. The improved and pre-loaded FAFSA form has contributed to this growth by encouraging more low-income students applying to college. Without access to these grants, many low-income students would not be able to afford post-secondary education, whether an AA degree, a BA/BS degree or a certificate program. The Pell expansion also speaks directly to the early stated and continuing goal of the president to get more and more individuals to and through post-secondary education to augment our nation’s educational attainment level by 2020.

Second, the secretary and his team moved to direct lending of government loans, taking out the middle people (i.e. banks) in the process. This dramatic shift was designed to save money previously siphoned off to the lenders, to make the process easier for students and parents to get loans in the first instance and to provide better benefits at the back end in terms of repayment options, with the government having more student-friendly provisions including forbearance, deferral, forgiveness, and income based repayment programs.

Third, the secretary has created a data-driven culture, in which information about what is actually occurring in the trenches has an increased role in conversations and decision-making. Quality data are hard to gather and some of the information collected isn’t sufficiently robust. But, with the most recent data dump, we have more and more information about low income students; we have Pell grant recipients’ retention and graduation rates, the amounts they borrow for their education, their default rates and their estimated earnings 10 years out. We can criticize, both in terms of their accuracy and completeness of the data, but these data are a critical step toward separating myth from reality.

Fourth and often unheralded, the secretary and his team have focused on improving school counseling. These counselors are the gateway for many low-income students accessing higher education. This means that these individuals need quality professional development; they need time in their days to focus on college access rather than disciplinary work or other administrative tasks; they need to understand the value of “fit” in terms of collegiate placement, which requires understanding not only financial aid options but also what distinguishes colleges and universities from each other.

These individuals need a manageable caseload, which is not 400 to 1. But here’s the key: these school counselors can guide students who are college bound to take the needed tests, register for the critical courses, complete the needed distribution requirements, and file the FAFSA. Best of all, they can provide their charges with a deep belief in their capacities to succeed when they graduate from high school.

Some disappointments

Despite these initiatives, not everything done under Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s watch has improved the lives of low-income students.

In focusing on improved borrowing, not enough attention was paid to repayment systems and the role and price of loan servicers; the latter group has produced quite the quagmire. The department’s effort to use the increased data to create a college ranking system was a wasted effort in terms of time, money, human capital and lost good will.

Related: Experts predict the opt-out movement will get some of what it wants

It was a flawed notion from the get-go. More attention should have been paid to non-elite institutions (like HBCUs) that serve low-income students and less attention on elite colleges/universities and undermatching. The rooting out of under-performing for-profit institutions has not gone swimmingly; the efforts to investigate and address sexual assaults on campuses have been slow and understaffed

But in the spirit of seeing the glass as half full, Secretary Duncan has much of which to be proud with respect to his fostering the success of low-income students in higher education.

One of the challenges for the secretary is whether the changes installed will have “stickiness,” enduring into a new administration and beyond.

On that issue, the jury is still out.

Karen Gross is the former president of Southern Vermont College and a former Senior Policy Advisor, U.S. Department of Education.

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Before I even got to the office my second morning on the job, three first-generation college students had left school. They had called home the night before and said they were homesick, and their families had come and gotten them. Their families’ own understanding of the initial adjustment period was virtually nonexistent. I saw then that we were going to need to change the entire process by which first-generation students are exposed to and then settled into college life.

Millions of first-generation and low-income students want to get on the education escalator. While much of the recent discussion of educating these students has focused on our nation’s elite colleges and these institutions’ ability to devote more financial resources to these students, those schools simply do not have the capacity to achieve this goal. Even if every elite college in America — say the top 40 — doubled the number of Pell eligible students they enrolled, we still would have millions of Pell eligible students who want to get a post-secondary degree but will not be attending an elite institution. The raw numbers reinforce this observation.

Related: How a little-known minority group illustrates a looming problem for colleges

In the current academic year, more than eight million students received Pell grants. To contextualize, if you take the total enrollment at the 10 largest public universities in the nation, the number of enrolled students approximates somewhere around 500,000. Harvard University has approximately 6,700 in its total undergraduate student body.

Assume each of the nation’s top 40 schools had similar enrollments (in reality, some are bigger and some are vastly smaller), and each of these institutions made sure that 50 percent of its entering class was Pell eligible (a fantasy given the current ranges). The result would be that approximately 150,000 – 200,000 low income students would be served by America’s elite colleges and universities.

Do the resulting math: well more than seven million Pell eligible students will get post-secondary education somewhere other than an elite college.

Related: Is Arizona State University the new model for the American university?

For Pell eligible students not attending elite colleges, I believe the issues upon entry to college are harder: The transition is bumpier, the student and family readiness are weaker, and the institutions serving these students are too under-resourced or stretched financially to provide the needed quality systemic support systems. That is why we need to focus our time, our attention and our resources on the Pell eligible students not attending Harvard or Haverford.

During my time as a college president, I learned to think differently and to listen and learn from the experiences of our first-generation students. In these initial weeks and in the years that followed, I came to see that if these students were going to succeed, we had lots of work to do.

We had to rethink the college calendar to minimize early disruptions. We had to restructure courses (e.g. their pedagogy, credit allocations, engagement opportunities) to facilitate learning; we never offered remediation. We had to augment advising and support systems, both academic and psycho-social. We realized, too, that our obligations were continuous – during vacations, in the summers and following graduation.

Related: California’s multimillion-dollar online education flop is another blow to MOOCS

During my presidency, I kept seeing issues that needed adjustment because of the population we were serving. And, when the number of first-generation students reached almost 70 percent over the next several years, even more adjustments were needed. There are no quick fixes; deep, systemic and systematic changes are needed – a comprehensive approach that is student centered. Yes, the Pell eligible students have to adjust but so too do the institutions that serve them.

To be sure, we have excellent elite colleges and more vulnerable students should be welcomed there and will be highly likely to graduate from there with a four-year degree.  We also have excellent non-elite colleges that serve first-gen Pell eligible students effectively and efficiently and with growing success, innovation and transformative practices.

As a matter of time, effort and resources, it seems to me we need to focus our money, our media attention and our best practices on those oft-vulnerable institutions that serve the students who need help the most. We need to think about how they can best serve these students.

Related: I’m the first in my family to go to college thanks to a program my school district cut

We know that that donations and grants are concentrated in our most elite institutions. True enough. And wealth begets wealth. But let’s be bold and creative here and think about how we can help those institutions that have the numbers of vulnerable students that, if successful, will enable a closing of educational attainment gaps.

This work may not have the appeal or prestige or uniqueness of helping low-income students accessing our elite institutions.  I get that. But it is work that can improve the lives of those less privileged, increase our workforce and lift – literally – a generation.

That’s valuable work by any measure.

Karen Gross is an educational consultant; author; former president of Southern Vermont College and Former Senior Policy Advisor to U.S. Department of Education.

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Read more about higher education.

The post Why most first-generation college students will attend ‘second-tier’ schools appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

When I taught consumer finance to law students and consumer advocates, I always warned my students about “free” financial products. Few things, I told them, are truly free.

Every time my students saw the word free, I urged them to focus on the three “C’s”: costs; catches and consequences. One or more of these three “C’s” would almost always be present – whether visible or intended. The task was to figure out how the provider of the so-called free product was moving money out of the consumer’s pocket into the provider’s pocket.

It should not be surprising that when the White House announced it was proposing free community college, I was not immediately overjoyed by the idea of free. What are the costs, catches and consequences?

Related: As a whole new kind of college emerges, critics fret over standards

We want more and more Americans – from young adults onward – to receive quality post-high school education.

With the growing equity gap between low and high income families, we need to enable more low income families to access higher education for which “cost” has been a barrier to entry and a burden to carry post graduation.

Employers bemoan the absence of diversity in the technology field,, suggesting there are no suitably trained candidates for existing jobs. To remediate this situation, we want to close the ever-present achievement gap along the entire educational pipeline: starting as toddlers, low income youth fail to progress at the same speed and with the same success as their higher income peers. The gap is acute in the STEM disciplines. For example, in high schools with the highest percentage of African American and Latino students, 25 percent do not even offer Algebra II and one-third do not offer chemistry. African American and Latino students account for only 15 percent of the students who take Advanced Placement tests in calculus and physics.

Related: Higher education is headed for a shakeout, analysts warn

The president’s proposal is designed to provide greater equality for all. That goal is spot-on but here are three C’s that bring to the fore the incapacity of free community college, as presently configured, to get us across the goal line.

First, the president’s free community college proposal makes the same funding available to all students – rich and poor – and that’s a cost problem.

It can’t be right to make what limited money there is available to those students who do not need the Federal or State government support.

Seems to me that we would want free to be targeted to those students whose Pell grants do not cover the full cost of community college (including books, transportation, lab fees). If the targeted problem is closing the equity gap, then the “free” dollars should be last in not first out dollars in the financial aid packaging for post-secondary education. That’s how Tennessee is doing it. That will help keep programmatic costs down.

Related: Critics question Obama’s free community college idea

Second, there is a presumption that community colleges are a better destination than a four-year college for many low-income students, and the White House proposal in essence “steers” low-income students to community colleges because they are “free.” The data do not support that suggestion based on retention and graduation rates as well as the importance of “fit.” There are small non-selective non-elite destinations that would serve vulnerable students ably. If students enroll at schools where the fit is bad and do not progress, that is costly.

So, one has to ask why we are not thinking about making the first two years of higher education free at all public and private institutions that are Title III and V eligible; or, we could offer free tuition to all institutions with Pell eligible students in excess of 30 percent. That would eliminate the “elites,” and put money into the institutions with smaller endowments, greatest need and high percentages of vulnerable students.

Third, we know that many of the jobs of the future will require a minimum of a bachelors’ degree. We also know that progression from two-year colleges to four-year colleges is low in terms of percentages. Approximately 20 percent to 25 percent of community college student progress to four year colleges; this means many students never finish community college in the first instance, let alone transfer. Oops; there’s the catch.

Related: The unexpected reason some in higher ed fear free community college

The good news is that for students who actually do transfer, their success rates are comparable to those who start at four-year institutions. Improving transfer rates is not simple. It requires quality articulation agreements, easily transferable credits and changed IPEDS reporting for both the two and four year institutions for purposes of calculating retention and graduation rates.

Fourth, there is almost a complete failure to address the role and needs of the 22% of community colleges that are MSIs. Why does this matter? These institutions serve, as noted in a recent report released by the Penn Center on MSIs, the greatest proportion of certain subgroups of minority students, like Hispanic students, and yet these institutions are seriously under-resourced.

And, in a recent conversation with Professor Marybeth Gasman, she noted the potential negative impact of free community colleges on four year MSIs; the latter are tuition dependent four-year institutions that may lose students to community colleges (MSI and non-MSI), unless quality articulation agreements are developed and those takes time. An unintended consequence.

Related: How many already attend community college for free?

The president’s proposal of free community college is, at first blush, an appealing and tempting solution to what ails higher education with its limited access to those less privileged. But for me, the real story rests in the costs, catches and consequences.

Two aspects of costs trouble me: the monies generated from the Federal and State government could go to support students who do not need support, and there is little to insure that the monies are well spent. The catches include that going to community college, even if free, is not an assurance that one will progress to and graduate from a four year institution. If anything, the data point in the opposite direction. And, the consequences of the proposal on four year MSIs and four year colleges that are non-selective are real and potentially damaging, absent improved transfer arrangements. Even then, some students will do better in a smaller environment from the get-go. This proposal undermines the reality that fit matters.

Of course, it is easier to critique proposals than to offer solutions. Consider these two suggestions:

Related: Free community college and supporting boys and men of color

The earlier referenced report issued by the Penn Center for MSIs identifies the economic conditions of the communities where MSI community colleges are located; some are in wealthy communities with sizable businesses. Prompted by a conversation with Professor Gasman, we have to ask why these businesses are not in a position to assist these MSI community colleges in developing the skill sets the enrolled minority students need for employment. Could these businesses afford paid internships, staff time to create learning laboratories and shared teaching responsibilities? This has already begun in the Foothills- De Anza District.

Why not have wealthy local community members contribute to a community college foundation, as has been done at Norwalk Community College. The monies could be distributed to foster business partnerships with job potential, fund transportation needs to internships that are remote and provide scholarships that help their graduates pay for tuition, room and board at a four year colleges.

Next, it is worth considering the academic and psycho-social gap between high school graduation and college and career readiness. Might all or some of the free money be dedicated to narrowing this chasm for first generation, low income, minority students? Not ad hoc (even if excellent) programming. We need systemic approaches. We can wait and provide remediation within community colleges but that is expensive and frustrating. We would be wiser to provide well-planned interventions at key transition points throughout the educational pipeline. That would free up monies now dedicated to remedial efforts and length of time to graduation.

Related: How free community college lifts barriers to economic well being

There could be early mentoring programs – where college students work with middle and high school students. There could be summer programs that curb the proven and frustrating academic slippage that occurs among low-income students throughout K –12. There could be college-bound cohort development to improve the statistics in terms of students enrolling in college and persisting. There could be pre-school efforts to improve the verbal skills of low-income toddlers who fall behind even before they start.

Free community college alone will not improve our nation’s inequality gap. We need to focus on even tougher issues like poverty and powerlessness. Leveling the playing field for our most vulnerable populations, assuming that is a desired goal, will be a tough and lengthy row to hoe. But, there is nothing wrong and a lot right with at least making some progress by improving educational opportunity.

Increasing access to community colleges is one place to start and enabling more minority students to progress through the educational pipeline is good policy – for the students, for our workplace, for our nation.

Karen Gross is the former president of Southern Vermont College and a former Senior Policy Advisor, U.S. Department of Education.

The post Free community college could cost more than we think appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

As we reflect on the diversity of students enrolling in America’s colleges and universities, our attention must turn to our veterans, especially those who have recently served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of us currently serving as college presidents and trustees are Baby Boomers who haven’t served in the military, and some of us are a product of the Vietnam protest era.

In 2012-13, I gained new perspectives on both the opportunities and the challenges facing our returning veterans when I served as a senior policy advisor to the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, D.C.

Had I not spent that year in the nation’s capital both meeting and working alongside military personnel, military-connected children, and veterans and their families, I would have been unprepared to create a welcoming campus environment for those who have served, or are serving, our nation—as members of the military or as children of service members. And, even with that experience, I realize the challenges are not small.

An example: On all of our student invoices, we list a dollar amount for college-provided health insurance, and it is not cheap. We also send students a waiver form so that if they can get or have coverage elsewhere, they can waive college coverage. The bottom line is we want all of our students to have healthcare coverage, one way or another. Many colleges do things similarly.

A veteran was recently in our accounts payable department reviewing his invoice and noticed an entry for student health insurance. When he asked what that dollar amount represented and heard the answer, he said something to this effect: “Don’t you all know that recent vets are covered by the government for five years?” Our accounts payable personnel, unaware of this military benefit, pointed out that the College provided a waiver form. Clearly frustrated by the whole situation, the vet replied: “I would have thrown that form out, knowing I did not need to worry about health insurance.”

This incident and others like it have been on my mind as we prepare as a nation for more veterans, service members and military-connected children on our campuses. Faculty and staff will carry out many needed changes. College leaders can endorse the President’s 8 Keys to Veterans’ Success, which address strategies for veterans to flourish in U.S. higher education, including the need for faculty and staff training. Leaders should also sign onto the Principles of Excellence.

We should consider courses designed for veterans but open to all, such as Literature of War and the Psychology of War. We could also encourage campus-appropriate discounts for our veteran or military-connected students, maybe in the college store and café, or priority course registration. Furthermore, we can provide military-connected children who enroll with mentors who have served in the military or have special training in aiding the transition of students who have relocated half a dozen or more times on their paths to college.

What else can college leaders do to improve the friendliness of our campuses to veterans and their children? Here’s a starter list of 10 concrete suggestions, intended to begin a conversation that will no doubt evolve over time.

1. Many of the web listings for college leaders, trustees, faculty and staff simply include their names and occasionally their affiliations. Why couldn’t we post a bit more information, including military service or work with the military (say, consulting or government contracting)? This would be an easy way for veterans or military-connected children and their parents to see that many others on campus have been engaged with the Services in one capacity or another.

2. Of the many photos in a president’s office or waiting area, are there pictures of the president, or of his or her family members, in uniform? Even if decades old, such photographs would communicate that the president’s spouse or parent or relatives served our nation. Personnel working with the president could also display photos in this area. Other items to display are the flags of the Services. The student center or other community areas might be a good place for these.

3. We have many prizes on our campuses, most handed out at commencement. Why not add a prize specific to veterans—the qualifications for which could vary from campus to campus. Some might consider academic excellence, or most improved academic performance, or greatest display of on-campus leadership. The point is to give specific, targeted prizes or medals to vets who have contributed in meaningful ways to the campus community and their own progression toward a degree.

4. College leaders could create equivalents to Military Challenge Coins and hand them out on campus to well-deserving students—veterans, military-connected children and non-veterans alike. At Southern Vermont College, we started an initiative like this, not keyed specifically to veterans but based on the military tradition. It would be relatively easy and economical to have coins made and then create a culture in which receiving one of these coins would have real meaning for recipients.

5. Veterans and military-connected students could be invited to share their experiences with the president and trustees at board meetings. On our campus, we have done this with other student groups (e.g., healthcare students, and students who traveled to China for a college program). This could be accomplished during lunch or some other convenient time within the normal meeting structure, with staff and faculty involved with veterans or military-connected students sharing programmatic initiatives in place or in development.

6. Academia, like the military, is filled with traditions and pomp and circumstance. There’s also academic regalia. Yet, we often do not emphasize all of this, particularly in today’s more casual world. But the hoods and robes have meaning, historical and contemporary, and this is worth sharing with veterans—and more than just a paragraph in the commencement program.

7. Many veterans are accustomed to sports that are not in our NCAA repertoire, such as golf and bowling, which are frequently played by those stationed abroad. We need to consider ways not only to offer these sports to vets but also to create competitions and events that enable these sports to generate interest and build community.

8. Faculty, staff and trustees across our campus have connections and relationships that can lead to employment opportunities for students in general and vets in particular. Some companies even have jobs earmarked for returning service men and women. College leaders could develop these opportunities and then work with their career centers to offer campus-based veteran job banks, for example.

9. When talking about their institutions, college leaders can make a conscious effort to speak about all students and reference institutional diversity in an expansive way—racial and ethnic; experiential and age; civil and military service to our nation. This will enable both insiders and outsiders to see the incredible richness on our campuses.
10. Last but not least, college leaders should read some of the remarkable literature addressing the challenges that service members face as they transition from military life to civilian life. While there are many works from which to choose, I suggest Jonathan Shay’s Achilles in Vietnam (1994), Nancy Sherman’s The Untold War (2010), Emily King’s Field Tested: Recruiting, Managing, and Retaining Veterans (2011), and James Wright’s Those Who Have Borne the Battle (2012).

As with all lists, there are many items to add but, at a minimum, I hope these 10 steps will help institutional leaders welcome more effectively the men and women, and their children, who have so ably served our nation. Our tribute to them is evidenced by how we welcome them into our institutions and the academy. That’s a small price for us to pay for their bravery.

Karen Gross is president of Southern Vermont College.

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Ask yourself what these three situations have in common: (1) a doctor tells a patient with a badly damaged wrist that surgery is both necessary and painful, but post-surgery the wrist injury will be stabilized and, in all probability, the wrist will be better and stronger than it was before; (2) a lender offers a home loan to a new homebuyer with reasonable variable interest and a down payment of 30 percent, knowing that if there’s a default down the road, the collateral (the home) can be sold at a fair price; and (3) a teacher tells her students that their selected course of study is intense, difficult and long but, if they succeed, there are quality, well-paying job prospects upon graduation.

The answer is that the “front-end” events—pain, costs, hard work—are linked to “back-end” rewards: improved health, little financial risk and considerable upside financial gain and valuable employment. This is a risk-reward analysis.

Sadly, the vast majority of media coverage of the costs of higher education focuses on the front-end costs of the higher education experience and ignores the back-end repayment options and opportunities. Yes, higher education is expensive, and value is not always commensurate with cost. To be sure, we address increased earning capacities of graduates with a four-year degree and the need for this degree in the twenty-first century workplace. Yes, we laud the improved health and civic engagement of college graduates.

But, we have a serious disconnect when it comes to conversations about incurring and repaying debt. This occurs in part because the front-end conversations happen in Admissions or Enrollment Management offices, whereas the back-end conversations are housed in Financial Aid offices. Students often learn about only one end of financial aid, and many individuals dealing with student admissions (not to mention talking heads, some higher-education experts, and college governing boards) are woefully under-informed about the back-end options.

Surely we can investigate new and creative models for financing higher education, especially for our most vulnerable students. We can reflect on cost-cutting, including through partnerships. But here is something we can do immediately: We can explain front-end and back-end options together, illuminating choices and easing the pain of borrowing and repayment. With the federal government playing such a central role in student lending and loan repayment, many of the sizable debt payments that undergraduates experience can be ameliorated. And at the same time, we can work to explore further repayment options, like expanding the bankruptcy discharge.

There are vast and beneficial repayment options, including income-based repayment (where a graduate pays based on earned income), public loan forgiveness for select professions, forbearance, deferral and rehabilitation (which can restore credit worthiness), among others. If you become a teacher or a police office or a nurse or a social worker, these options can help immeasurably by lowering payments and then eliminating the final portion after a period of on-time payments. The possibilities are complex, and simplification would be beneficial. Surely we would not be happy—and have not been happy—with a teacher, surgeon or lender who did not think through the back-end consequences of front-end actions. Think malpractice lawsuits and the home mortgage crisis.

The real question is why have we allowed the rhetoric surrounding the cost of U.S. higher education to capture the conversation without a concomitant discussion of repayment options? Why don’t we explain that, yes, some students will graduate with debt of $27,000, but here are ways to repay that amount without imperiling their future.

I was pained to see this disconnect most recently at a meeting of educators addressing whether there is room for tuition increases in today’s market. The comments included:

• “Our students cannot pay more. Period.”
• “The only thing that matters is net tuition revenue; who needs a tuition increase if we can’t fill the seats at the current price?”
• “Flat-lining tuition is a promise of stability for families and will encourage enrollment.”
• “If we raise tuition, we will lose a sizable portion of our applicant pool.”
• “You cannot get blood out of a stone.”

Not once were repayment options offered as a counter-balance. Not once were creative approaches to financing suggested. Instead, the educators bought into the current rhetoric hook, line and sinker: higher education is overpriced for our low-income students, and there’s no solution in sight. Yipes.

There are some hard and largely intractable issues in higher education as well as growing inequalities that cannot be solved easily. But we can address one aspect of this problem by breaking the silos between Admissions on the one hand, and Financial Aid repayment on the other. We can speak loudly about the beneficial repayment options that exist but often go unused.

It is not too late to tell students entering college in 2014-15 that the front-end size of their debt can be ameliorated at the back-end. This will reinforce the idea that pursing higher education is both a worthy and worthwhile investment. The price of tuition is not what matters per se. Capacity to service the debt post-graduation is what counts. Let’s raise our voices to showcase the many back-end options that are available—they are staring us in the face.

Karen Gross is president of Southern Vermont College.

The post The flawed conversation on the cost of U.S. higher education appeared first on The Hechinger Report.