AACC Pathways college leaders said that some of the costs involved in implementing pathways can be covered by reallocating existing resources. For example, colleges are incorporating the updating of program maps into existing program review processes. They are reassigning devel- opmental instructors to teach corequisite courses and in some cases to teach college-level math and English courses. They are assigning the coordination of ongoing pathways reforms to new or rechartered standing student success committees. They are focusing recruitment and marketing more strategically than they did in the past, highlighting college programs and their associated job and further education outcomes rather than just emphasizing the college as a welcoming place to attend. They are exploring how they can schedule classes more efficiently to maximize the number of courses students can take on their academic plans in contiguous time blocks (thus increasing capacity utilization). And they are cultivating a culture where everyone—not just faculty and student services staff—sees it as their responsibility to help students develop clear goals for college and careers and to guide them into and through programs that will enable them to realize their aspirations.
Planning and managing pathways reforms requires some modest additional resources. This includes funding to provide:
• faculty and staff time to review and redesign programs, instruction, and support services; • training and professional development on key topics, such as advising and using student
information systems; and
• administration and support to coordinate, communicate, and engage college stakeholders in the reform process.
While a more precise accounting is still needed, our discussions with leaders at the AACC Path- ways colleges indicate that other changes may also require more substantial additional resources. The two biggest new costs pathways colleges report they are confronting are in:
1. hiring additional advisors both to help students choose a path and to monitor and support their progress through to completion; and
2. upgrading student information systems and websites to improve program information, student progress tracking, and analytics.
Covering these costs in an era of declining state support and changing demographics and demand for higher education is challenging.
Andy Dorsey, the president at Front Range Community College, said that in fall 2016, about a year into planning for the college’s pathways reforms, the college had spent between $100,000 and $150,000, mainly on 20 course reassignments for implementation team leaders and members (at around $3,000 each) and on convening and other coordination costs. The real costs will come, he said, when the college changes its advising model, which will require hiring new advisors and making some targeted investments in faculty members who will mentor students in their disci- plines. The college also may need to add staff positions for orientation, embedded classroom sup- port, and the registrar’s office. Since 2015, when the college adopted its latest strategic plan based on the recommendations of a task force that called for pathways reforms, the president and his finance team have been reserving money in the budget to cover these expected costs. Other stra- tegic decisions have been made: The college has closed some positions that are no longer relevant and has postponed hiring for some open positions until the new advising model is clear. According to Dorsey, shoring up money for pathways has required “very careful husbandry of resources.” In summer 2016, there was a point when enrollment was down 12 percent from the previous year. The college stepped up recruitment, and it got enrollment back up to parity with the previous year. Had enrollment stayed down, Dorsey indicated that the college may not have been able to hire new advisors and make other investments needed to implement pathways. Because enrollment steadied, however, the college has been able to move ahead with its planned advising changes and other investments aimed at improving student success. Carrying out reform as ambitious as guided pathways in a time of scarce resources is a very precarious business.
San Jacinto College leaders said they have “reallocated and repurposed” to free up staff and
resources for pathways. They acknowledge that there will be additional costs, particularly in hiring more advisors and upgrading the college’s enterprise resource planning system and website. But college leaders believe that these investments are necessary to achieve the goals in the college’s strategic plan, so they are committed to finding ways to fund them. College leaders acknowledge that some of the changes they are putting in place might cost the college revenue. For example,
instituting math pathways and acceleration techniques means that students are moving more quickly into college-level courses and taking fewer developmental education courses. This is good for students, but it means fewer contact hours in developmental education—although the college hopes this will translate into increased college-level course enrollments.
Daniel Phelan, president of Jackson College, convinced the college’s board to raise tuition by 8 percent over two years to support the hiring of 12 new “student success navigators”—to bring the college’s total number of advisors up to 18. Phelan and other AACC Pathways college leaders are calculating how much their colleges need to increase full-time equivalent enrollment (FTE, i.e., retention) to generate the revenue (through increased tuition, state apportionment, and perfor- mance funding) to cover the additional costs involved in pathways reforms.