 Hello and welcome and thank you for joining our session today supporting community college students with quality jobs. My name is Mary Alice McCarthy, and I direct the Center on Education and Labor here at New America. Today, we're going to share some preliminary research on how community colleges can provide their students with more access to high quality paid work opportunities. That is with jobs that can help students earn enough money to afford their education and also build experiences and professional networks that give them a jumpstart on their careers. This research is part of a year long project supported by the Annie E Casey Foundation, and it has three broad goals. We want to raise the awareness among policymakers and community leaders on the need to provide more high quality work opportunities to community college students. We also want to elevate innovative student jobs programs at community colleges around the country. And we're going to do that here today and our goal there is to help other colleges adapt these models to their own unique circumstances. And then we want to identify opportunities for state and federal policy reforms to support and expand and scale the kinds of high quality jobs programs that we're identifying through our research. Now, if you're thinking to yourself right now, wait, don't most community college students already have jobs and isn't that a problem? You would be correct. In fact, more than 80% of community college students are working learners and almost 40% of those students of community college students actually hold down full time jobs while they're studying. And the need to work and earn money often gets in the way of a student's ability to complete their education. There is a large body of research that shows that having to work while being in college actually lowers your odds of graduating. But there are important exceptions to that trend. And that is that students who participate in work study jobs, that is jobs that are funded by our federal work study program, or other types of campus jobs programs. And students who participate in paid internships are actually more likely to graduate than students who do not participate in these kinds of work experience programs. And these programs the job is actually part of an overall student success strategy. One of the most striking inequities in our higher education system is that community college students have far less access to work study opportunities or paid internships than their counterparts in four year institutions. Indeed, our federal work study program is so out of balance that only 2% of community college students are able to access work study jobs, despite making up 40% of undergraduate enrollments. And despite the reality that for many of these students, if they aren't able to work they will not be able to go to college or complete college. And this unequal access to work study jobs and to paid internships builds on and amplifies racial disparities and degree attainment as black and Latino and Latina students are overrepresented among community college students who in turn have the least access to these types of jobs. This needs to change. We need to expand the ability of community colleges to provide students with good part time jobs that can help them complete college and gain valuable work experience. And while this has been true for a long time, it is especially urgent today is thousands of would be community college students are having to postpone or abandon their education and career goals, because they cannot afford to go to college. Since the onset of the pandemic in 2020 community college enrollments have dropped significantly. In fact, the most community colleges have experienced the largest enrollment drops of all institutions in our higher education system. And in the spring of 2021 spring of 2021 10% there was a 10% drop in the number of students enrolling in community colleges compared to the previous year. We'll see what happens this fall but again there's good reason to be concerned that we are once again going to see depressed enrollments in our community college in our community colleges. And these enrollment drops have been the highest among African American Latino and first generation students. Many factors are driving these enrollment drops, but one of them is clearly that many potential students have either lost their jobs, or cannot balance their current work obligations with their ability to go to college perhaps they had to take on increased hours or perhaps they had to take on a type of work that make that is less flexible or makes it harder for them to combine work and learning. And again, we're seeing how the current trends are once again amplifying racial disparities and racial inequities as the black unemployment rate is still nearly five points higher than the unemployment rate among whites, which again is affecting black students in community colleges. So we also know that a lot that the longer a person puts up going to college, but less likely they are to complete a degree, and then the less like the lower their long term earning potential. So it's absolutely critical that we make it easier for community college students to combine learning and working. And we're going to hear today about how one college has been has been doing just that for the last couple of years, and we're going to learn about what policy and policymakers can do to help us spread those kinds of practices. So with that, I'm going to turn the mic over to my colleague, my new America colleague Ivy love, take it away Ivy. Thank you so much Mary Alice. Hi everyone. Thank you so much for being here with us. I'm Ivy love. I'm a senior policy analyst in the Center on Education and Labor at New America, and I'll be directing traffic during this webinar today while you're with us. So you'll hear more from me later about some of our current work, but first we have two wonderful speakers here with us. I'm Pam Edinger from Bunker Hill Community College, who are so grateful to have with us. Thank you Pam and Jihang Lee from the Association of Community College Trustees, we really appreciate you being here. And please be sure to stick around after everyone says their piece because we have plenty of time for moderated question and answer session with my wonderful colleague Iris Palmer. So with that, I want to go ahead and pass the mic on to our first speaker, Pam Edinger Pam, go for it the mic is all yours. Well, thank you. I'm pleased to be with my good colleagues around the table today. In fact, I just came off a conversation with with a good foundation grant partner, and trying to explain to folks that 80% of our students are ready in jobs, as Mary Alice has noted, not all of those are well paying jobs. So the trick is to understand what our major industries are within our area of impact around this, our region in New England, and certainly for us is healthcare, and it's it, the emerging industries and for strange reasons. Also the, the creative economy, because of the tie to gaming and the tie to technology that's here. So one of the considerations that we have is to know that our community college students stay local. When they graduate, they do not go across the country to California, they stay in New England and this is where their families and roots are. And our ability to build that conduit to the good jobs to the to the sustaining jobs, or even to jobs that would be emerging like clean energy. That would be a large piece. And for some of my colleagues along the coast, when energy renewable energy, and to be able to develop to help develop infrastructure to get our students into those jobs are important. And the main piece is that if you want our students to go to those better jobs that needs training, you can't say to them you're going to double up for the next two years, and do two jobs and support your family. The financial reality of our students is that in order to go train for that new job, they will have to give up the job that they're in. Whether you allow them to take many, many years to get there, or you're going to have to pay for them to come to school. And that's to me the bottom line. Right if you want to train, it is an investment in time they're already have skin in the game. So part one is for the colleges and our business partners to be much closer together in crafting and identifying what those new jobs are. What is entry level and what is stackable and sustainable. So that there's a pathway is it certified nursing assistance to license practical nurses into registered nursing, and then into a bachelor's nerfing nursing degree. Is it an it help this that goes on the Cisco training that goes into system administration and stacks as it goes up. The better at the community colleges for the understanding of those micro credentials that climb, the better we can help our students get into those jobs that are sustainable. And the reality is that we, we have to fund it, we have to make it financially possible for them to switch and for them to invest time. We haven't really done that. We've been saying a lot let's get them into more sustainable jobs and while go ahead you got boots you got straps bootstrap yourself. It doesn't work like that. So I think investment, financial investment and policy investments on the federal level as well as the state level needs to be able to address those nuts and bolts. Thank you so much Pam, and I know iris just wrote recently a piece about your learn and earn program at Bunker Hill so I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about that really impressive. So, so I have to acknowledge we stole the learn and earn program from Northeastern University down the street. And we modified it. And this is really an example of the difference and the trend and the transition that we need to do when we think about the traditional internship programs built for four year colleges with middle class, you know, growing adults who are trying to learn how to how to work in the in the workplace. So we took the traditional internship model our students work about 2030 hours and that can be one semester to semester however long they want to extend it. And then they're in class the other the other 10 to 12 hours because we don't want them to lose the connection to academics our students are fragile that way. Right it's easy to separate from from the from the traditional classroom, because that is not where their lived experiences are. Their relationships are paid, and we insist, sometimes it's really hard to insist with our with our partners with our with our work partners that they be paid minimum wage. So way before minimum wage was $15 our students were earning 15, and now they're earning 18, and that they are paid a transportation stipend. That's the kind of adjustment right that we need to do between the university kind of internships, and our kind of internships that $12 today may not seem like a lot for for train fare, but it's a difference between having a meal for their family, and not. Right so the decision sometimes for our students to come and do that internship. One is that they don't know the workplace, and that's a risk that's a real risk for them. The other is, how do I ask a students to destabilize their full time working life to take up an internship. That's not forever. Right so so we have to, we have to support them enough to say to them, no you can carry both or no this is worth your investment you need to invest in this. We've over the last decade or so we've put through. Probably 5600 students, we have a high rate of hiring for those students to be full time. And always remember the story of this one woman who went to work for Raytheon. In their HR department and we had an alumni night and she came back and she says you know she said to our Provost. If it were not, if it weren't for this work and you know, learn and earn program, I would have never gotten into a workplace like that. And when she says like that she meant a professional workplace right she she would have never thought that she could make it. And now she's hired full time into that HR department and it is going to change her life is going to change the life of her family and she has broken the cycle of poverty. Yeah, it is right now we're moving that program beyond the banking heavy industries and into the civic and the nonprofit and the cultural realm. And those employers don't always have the dollars to support it. So what we're doing is that we're raising funds through our foundation to cost share. And frankly, we shouldn't have the cost share. This is the best investment for retention and completion that the country can make it just we have to tell the story differently. So there's learn and earn. Oh, this is a good piece of news. So we work with the East Bell Stewart Gartner Museum which is one of the major museums in Boston. They have just given us all 10 of their internship slots. All 10 of them. So we're hoping that the museum of fine arts across the street will do the same. So if they're listening that's what they should be doing. Pam that's wonderful. Congratulations on adding those internship slots and yes I hope the Museum of Fine Arts is tuned into this webinar and is willing to welcome your wonderful students. That's fabulous. So thank you so much that it's really wonderful to hear how this is working on the ground at Bunker Hill and I'm sure folks will have lots of questions for you coming up so please drop your questions in the chat if you want to learn more. So, let me move on now with the understatement of the year which is there's a lot of federal policy items happening right now. And so I would love to pass the mic over to G Henry who is currently the senior vice president and a few short weeks will be the president of the Association of Community College Trustees to take a look at the federal perspective on what's happening and what implications that might have for student work opportunities. So, I'm going to hand it over to you. Well, Ivy thank you for the introduction and always Pam, your leadership at Bunker Hill is really appreciated and I know you're a leader in our field. So my task today is talk a little bit about some of the programs that exists at the federal level and its connection to our institutions. As mentioned, you know one of the most important programs in terms of providing workplace experience for our students right now is a federal work study program. Many of our institutions have robust programs with these resources, but candidly, we could use some additional resources through the federal work study program. One of our top priorities for the federal work study is to modernize the formula for distribution of aid to institutions. The last time I believe the formula was changed was in 1999. We are over two decades away. That was prior to me having gray hair. And so we obviously have transverse significant number of years since then. This has meant some of the enrollment patterns that our institutions have fundamentally shifted. And how do we solidly support our students in with this program. If we don't have enough resources to actually do all these resource these funds to students. The other area that we would really like to see in the federal work study is to expand the definition of community service as part of this effort. One of one of our institutions that I was communicating with in preparation for this event told me that they wanted to create a work study position to help have somebody and students help students fill up the FAFSA. And in addition to do some financial literacy. And those did not meet the community service requirement so therefore they could not do it. So when in turn the institution has to create some additional programs with their own institutional dollars to go forward. Work study is important because it does one key thing. It keeps students on campus if these are on campus positions. If they have a student working two or three jobs going from here to there. If they can come to the institutional campus, they can walk to class go work. That is a better process for retention and completion for that student being in one place is better than being in three places. Furthermore, the vast majority of our students are part time students one third of our students are full time two thirds are part time. And it shows you kind of the dilemma that are by you know our presidents like Pam have to deal with an increase in completion and success. When two thirds of your students are working at least one job, probably more. And I would also say one of the one of the benefits of that student actually being on campus longer is that we know that over 20% of our students globally throughout higher education, our student parents. One of the problems that we have seen and obviously our association is a strong support of the C campus program. And, but, which is the federal childcare program what we have seen is that, unless a student is in or the student parent is in an area for a significant amount of time. They have to create like layers of childcare, not just come on campus, hand off their child, go to class, go to work study, pick up their child and leave. So in turn, if you are only on campus one day or two days, you have to create childcare opportunities beyond and you have to bridge. So these are some of the policy decisions at the federal level is that one, if we can create programs like a COG federal work study, increase the program maximum to really support students efforts around working on campus and creating a more full time experience, we will do a lot of legwork to assist these individuals to complete succeed and get well, while paying jobs. You see kind of the layers of the federal government how we have these various programs but sometimes we can't necessarily match them up all the way. You know, I would also say, you know, Pam's program is similar to other programs that our colleges have. Our colleges in Michigan has a for all associate degree earners they have an internship requirement as part of completion and credentialing. And I think those are wonderful opportunities but the flip side is colleges have to work with the community and businesses and the Chamber of Commerce to get these opportunities to be students it's just not enough to create a requirement. It's institutions have to be on the hook to support their students to get these opportunities in place. And I do think at the end of the day, any resources that we can provide and build working behavior, you know, creating a work structure workplace structure will help all of our students, you know, succeed and get a well paid job. Hopefully. Let's see what else that I have for you. The only other thing that I would just mention is federal work study has historically, you know, this is, this is not the verifiable about with research, but I do know this. I have met more and more work study students that became who worked in the financial aid offices that then became financial aid directors and I've ever heard of any other division. So, as a person who, you know, sees the, you know, drastic need for individuals to understand financial aid work study is a key component because like all the eight directors that I know participated in federal work study. So, I think this is an enormous opportunity and a number of our world colleges and my communication about the program said, this is a wonderful program to create a history and support, and that may lead to a longer term position within the institution going forward. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your perspective on that and I have also observed like the student worker to institutional staff pipeline so we may not have the data but I will write that. So thank you for sharing. Before we go to the question and answer section. I just want to share for a couple minutes about a recent report that Iris Palmer Wesley whistle and I published on the 13th of last month, I believe, which I'll drop in the chat for you as soon as I get off camera and I'm done sharing. As Alice mentioned earlier on, we are deeply grateful to have financial support from the any Casey Foundation to do this work looking at student jobs for community college students. And because so much was happening in the federal policy sphere as this grant kicked off we got right to work, developing a report looking at a variety of possible funding streams. So, I just want to share a couple of things from that and then also we've been having conversations with a variety of colleges who have very different iterations of student job opportunities on their campuses but there's something for us to learn from all of them. So, first of all, I'll kind of start with that institutional look. So colleges see a variety of benefits of student jobs programs, a variety of motivations so for some institutions their impetus for building out an internship or redesigning a job study at their institution was to promote year over year retention as Pam was saying if students can renew that job term over term for as long as it makes sense for them for a lot of students that guarantee of income and support and opportunity to apply what they're learning is really huge for keeping them enrolled for other institutions they're more focused on integrating what folks are learning in the classroom into a work environment, which I think is probably the most familiar iteration of student and for institutions where that's paid that's just a huge barrier taken down. If folks are required to do internships and that pay isn't there that can be a really, really big barrier for students so something for us all to consider. And others really see student jobs primarily as a way of getting resources and students hands that this is another way other than grants scholarships other resources to make sure that students have the financial resources they need to stick around. And to G hangs point on campus jobs can be really great for that because you can also reduce that transportation time and cost potentially with childcare as well. Whereas if an off campus opportunity there's an employer like folks doing Pam's program who are paying multiple dollars above minimum wage an hour and providing mentorship that can be a really great option to. So lots of different ways to do this, but that is a driving factor for a lot of institutions how do we get resources to our students and layer that with learning opportunities for them. So I won't rehash everything G hangs said but there's a lot of places in federal work study where we can do better by our community college students. And I think that flexibility really is key to build out opportunities that make sense for the students who were enrolled. Our program program is not necessarily focused on meeting the needs of community college students they're older they're already working they already have work experience many of them have families it's just not necessarily built for their lives. And I think we can do better in that regard. So we detail that some more in our report again I will drop that link for you and just a moment here. So something else that we brought up in this brief that we published is that there are investments beyond what's strictly for higher education that could make a difference for community college students. One of the things that we highlight as national service. So right now, for example if someone's doing AmeriCorps, if their supervisor or employer says it's okay you can continue to take classes while you're serving. It's not necessarily designed at this point to be integrated with higher education but what if we did that what if we made AmeriCorps friendlier to students. Those are very similar to the jobs that I think you're talking about Pam with like with the creative community the public service focus specific focus jobs that many students are very interested in. So something we could do in that regard is first of all just to encourage that. And secondly to think about the Segal education awards that folks earn when they're doing national service programs. What if students could use those resources while they were doing their service and they didn't have to wait until afterwards. So I think there are some other ways that we can we can reconceptualize supporting students with this existing program. So as we talk about in our report, there are benefits programs that have subsidized wages after the Great Recession there was a TANF emergency fund that was subsidizing wages for eligible folks. If we did something like that where community college students could access jobs like that that could be huge for them. So there, that's just to say that higher ed is not an island there are other ways to get resources to our students that could make a huge difference for them. So I'll share the report. Those are some little teasers about what we're hearing from institutions and we hope to have a report early next year for you with more information on that. So I think that's all from me so I really appreciate you Pam and G hand sharing your remarks. Very, very much appreciated. All three of us will be around to answer any questions that you might have please feel very free to drop those in the chat box if you have not done so already. And I'm going to hand the mic to my wonderful colleague iris to moderate question and answer. Thank you Ivy and we already have quite a few questions coming in for both Pam and G hang. One is actually about work study and some of the exceptional nature of work study so the work study earnings don't actually count towards your award limit on eligibility for federal financial aid. I was wondering if she had you wanted to talk a little bit about that and if Pam if you could talk a little bit after him about some of the barriers you faced with using work study on for earn and learn in particular. Should we have a cap. Should we not have a cap. Just, if you could talk a little bit about that benefit and how maybe that sets work study apart from some of the other funding streams we've talked about to subsidize student wages. So, one of the things that the federal government did in the last year or so, I believe they provided some more flexibility with the federal work study program, even allowing some students to work full time. In addition to going to, to their institution. I think one of the things that we need to do better and as policy leaders in Washington DC. This is going to sound a little bit weird but you know one of the jobs are for community colleges and sure individuals have high paying jobs once they leave their institutions. And what we've tried to do at our institutional level is to do a mismatch of health student loans, SEOG federal work study, any state grant aid to help that student get to wherever they need to get to. Sometimes these programs and the barriers of the architects of these programs don't necessarily allow an institution to do that so if we could find an internship, or another program that could lead to a that leads from an internship to a job. How do we help that student get from point A to point B with the current infrastructure that we have with federal grant aid and state aid. One, one example for an example is one of the programs that our college community colleges really liked during the Obama years was a tax program that TAA community college career training grant program. The program allowed our institutions to buy equipment, you know, do other professional development expansion of programs, but it did not do one thing. It did not support the students students had to pay to know the tuition fees to get into those programs. So how do we help and create like leverage points. And this is one area where, for example, we shouldn't be so myopic that it has to be on campus. It has to be a nonprofit. It has to be this. We should be thinking a little bit more globally about like all sorts of opportunities including industry and other entities within the community. Really good points and Pam, will you talk a little bit about sort of why federal work study didn't didn't necessarily work so well for earning learning. We used it all up before we got to the learning program. I mean to tell you the truth, you know, it's not like we get buckets of buckets of money and we have the ability to go hey everybody take a piece. That's not the way it works on my campus. I mean that's the reality right and also the learning earn program had a particular goal, which is to get our students connected to institutions outside of the college. Because, yeah, I would love to employ all of my graduates, but the job opportunities are not at my colleges with those two large industries of health care or it or, you know, the growing arts area and the growing civic and cultural organizations or the small business. So, yes, I think it would be terrific for me to get more money in and get some of my students maybe to to to work internally and to grow internally. But the size of my institution is limited the size of business and industry outside is not. What if the goal, if the ultimate and I think all of these different options have to be present where our students are not monolithic so there will be some students who need this we need this we need this we need this. And the scaling up of these things I used to think when I was earlier in my career scaling up men taking one template and growing it big. I no longer think that way because I work at the community colleges and our students all need different things. So the scaling may very well be how can we make each one of these smaller portions healthier so that I can keep them all afloat. And I think the federal work study piece is real for students to stay on campus. I don't have to worry about that because my campus is not a suburban one students don't have to drive they take the tea. So as long as I pay that 12 bucks a day for them to take the tea, I can send them to wherever the heck I want, whether it's a hospital or medical center or performing arts center downtown. I think when we talk about these options. We have to not go back to where we were when we're trying to be four year colleges. We have these wonderful models that you can scale up for everybody on the Harvard campus. Right we're not that. I love the kind of multitude no thinking that we have around this table that that there are all these different possibilities and I'm, I'm, I think we're smarter about it well I think that we have not mentioned is apprenticeships. Lots of questions about that path. Yeah, yeah. Exactly right please talk a little bit about apprenticeships. So when we think about apprenticeships you know we have the beautiful foundations that were really set by our experts in the trades they've been doing apprenticeships forever either pre apprenticeships or apprenticeships. When you talk about all the things that we want for our students they want to be working in their field they want to be hired afterwards they want to be connected to the classroom and connected to the workplace, and have mentorships and both, and have the students engage. All of those ingredients are in apprenticeships. Now what were neat. I think what we need to do and everybody is trying to do this on this wonderful, wonderful new committee that I'm on. The advisory committee for apprenticeship, back after four years of hiatus is that now we need to think about what is the next generation jobs and industries that is going to give our students a sustainable jobs a sustainable wage. And, and, and the kind of, and the kind of connections that we've always wanted them to have. It's, it's one brand right not everybody is going to want to be an apprentice. Everybody is a mix. It's part of the mix of having jobs for students that are sustainable. So, I'm excited about it. It is very cool. It is very exciting. Oh yeah go ahead. Just a little caveat. Pam is very humble about the fact that she's a committee member. When she's really the chair of the committee. So, congratulations. When you have 29 experts from, from, from, from labor and from industry and from higher education and early education and chair and care and then you have this entire infrastructure right of the office of apprenticeship. They are an amazing staff supported by Angela Hanks who is the assistant secretary of labor. They have the infrastructure ready for us. All we have to do is go in and do the thinking and they're going to, they're going to renew this entire, entire offering so I can see the federal work studies being vibrant the the the internships being vibrant and and apprenticeships being vibrant. There should not be any student on a community college campus who does not have some way of tapping into those resources I think we've got a good variety out there. This is a wonderful landscape. This brings us to a more specific question around apprenticeships which is, what are some of the things colleges should consider community colleges in particular as they're thinking about apprenticeship programs versus paid internship program and how do those coexist how do we how do you see colleges think about that she hanging your in your membership and Pam how have you thought about that at Bunker Hill. I think from my perspective. We serve all sorts of students, you know, an 18 to 19 year old traditional age students might pursue the more internship community service routes. You know, the single parent who's 32, who is back to get re credentialed and apprenticeship is probably a better model for that person than to do some type of an internship. So I think, you know, one of the things that I always tell our colleges is to always be open to new ideas and new partnerships and opportunities. Because the reality is ours, our sector is so diverse, our institutions are different from each other. Pam's institution is different from, you know, an institution 50 miles away. In terms of the course offerings that they provide concentrations and fields. So I, you know, I, I would just say colleges should be thinking about who their students are their age demographics. They should look at the data and figure out what are the best opportunities for those students. And ultimately, you know, usually at the end of the sometimes speed is the right answer. But also, you know, I would love my colleges to think a little bit beyond speed but also fit and earnings as part of that conversation. And I'd love to hear any reflections you have on this. As a student, I look at all these things and I go, which one pays me the best. Right, I mean, you know, we sometimes get to a point where we're planning all of these things for students, our students have some really basic needs. They need to be able to feed their family. They need to be able to pay for that housing. They need their lives not to be turned upside down while they're retraining. If we built our program with that in mind rather than all students need to pull themselves up by their bootstrap and you know I think they're going to come and cheat us if we gave them too much, which is you know some of the going thinking in the policy world right how do we give stuff away but not give stuff away but make them jump through 10 hoops. Don't do that. It's ultimately, I think, I want my student, our students to have as much financial security while they're going through this as many promises as they can secure from their future employer. And that's the program that I want them to have I don't care if it's an internship, or if it's a, if they, if it's a an apprenticeship and if the apprenticeship can get their acts together. More students will go into that because it's more attractive. I want to protect our students, right from unreasonable debt from unreasonable kind of circular pathways in order to get to the job they want. If we're really thinking that our workforce is that important and pay for them. And that's not always the case. That is really not always the case. It may not be the answer the folks want to hear. But yeah pay our students they are our future they're worth it. Put money, all the things. Yeah. Sorry, continue. So that actually brings us towards the sort of elephant in the room, which is what is currently in the federal reconciliation bill, I think, which would be guaranteeing free community college tuition to students in states that opted into the program. I'm wondering if either of you both of you have some reflections on how that kind of promise of free tuition might play into the this idea of subsidized jobs on campus have either of you given that any thought. I'll start. I'll start, I'll start from a very superficial level. I think the idea of universal higher education time has come time has come for that idea. The fact that three quarters of the jobs couldn't be filled and we kept saying that we need workers that three quarters of the jobs is going to need some college is the signal that universal higher education is important in the same way to 60 years to have a high school diploma, right, rather you can call it great or credential inflation call what you want. That's the reality right now out there that we need to fill these jobs. Is it free college, but I mean it's free college community college better than doubling pal I mean you know, I think opinions differ. But looking from the students point of view, it is cover my tuition and fees and make sure that I have enough money to pay my rent and not make me worth 30 hours a week. Take three classes and then tell me I'm failing because I can't finish in two and a half years. Right, it's that kind of narrative and dialogue that is at the level of where my students live. Now at the state level or at the policy level you can say well, you know, the college promise piece is better for some states or than others because of their previous investment and how they do that crazy equalization thing, which I'm having a hard time explaining to people but I get it. At the bottom of that is a promise from the states that they're going to sustain their promise. Right, because after five years all bets are off. And what are you going to do after five years those are the specifics. And I think, once a state and our federal government commit to the fact that universal higher education is a thing. And it's not going to go away. Then we get down to the nitty gritty and work out the specifics will everybody sign up at once I don't think so. Eventually, shouldn't we have everybody sign up so we don't give away and and miss the time of the understanding of universal higher education I don't think we should let that idea go. Yeah, I would just echo what Pam just said, you know, here's, here's the rub. And when Pam goes to her high, you know, her neighboring high school to do a college night to talk about Bunker Hill Community College. The best message that she could send to the students that are in the room and the parents in the room is, and say, if you come to me next year, you get free tuition and fees. You don't have to borrow to cover tuition and fees. And that's a powerful and strong message. And that's why we at our association strongly support America's cause promise because of that universal language. What I don't want to happen is Pam to go out that student fair and say, if you are this you get free if you are this you get free if you are not, then you don't get free. The messaging is important. People, you know, I participated in in, you know, in one of the advisory groups for new America four years ago. And I remember a student who, you know, participated in this effort and he said, I was told something. I didn't get it. And that individual never went back on to the college campus, never attended another higher education institution. So, for us, as we try to get first generation students, low income students into college and get them a credential or our job. It's important for us to have simple messages that resonate, and we cannot use but okay, or if you know these are these are problems, you know candidly like it's like, if you do this if you do this it's like, I don't think that is a message that resonates with our students, because they're going to read two or three things down and they're just going to turn the page or close the book. And that's, to us, a big barrier that we're trying to address with free access to community college community colleges and just lastly, we have seen significant slippage in our moment with men in our institutions, and especially men of color. And until we actually start having broader conversations about how we can change the messaging around higher education and the importance of higher education for men. We are going to see continued slippage. And we are going to get to a point where it's going to be a long term problem, not just a short term problem for us as a society. Yeah, just a quick follow up on this and you may not know this yet so please tell me if it's off base, but do you expect that if America's college promise passed the way it is currently that it might free up some additional institutional money to sort of support subsidized jobs in a way that would help cover maybe some of those living expenses that she hang and Pam you both mentioned. Not necessarily in Massachusetts, but I do think you know I think in the institution, the states that have more subsidized tuition and fees. So for example, the North Carolina California's of the world. I think that these will be enormous opportunities for them to think about. In addition, we also shouldn't. We should also be talking about the completion fund that's also going to be out there the 9 billion over seven for those states that participate in the America's college promise those dollars would be available. Obviously, all of this is contingent on Congress passing something and God knows what's going to happen. But those resources would also flow to states to kind of, you know, help students and and really kind of push new ideas in terms of student supports and student success. So first let me say this, I really do believe that the idea of community colleges are on the rise. The idea that we are a critical part of the higher at landscape is on the rise right because we're one of three types of colleges that came out of necessity. The Harvard's and the and the BU's and the in the northeastern sort of world came into being, because we need it somewhere for the second sons of land owners to go 300 years ago so they can be priests. Right, but the community colleges the historic black colleges and women's colleges came into being, because we were the marginalized populations that needed higher education and we came into being because of that. And I think in this iteration the community colleges came into being, because we cannot afford to throw away the talents of 50% of our undergraduates, and that we are the heart of workforce development and also of diversity and equity. So I have no doubt the money is going to flow in some way or another into the community colleges, but the danger is how they flow and how they're labeled, and how they're restricted. As CEOs and leaderships on campus, we have to avoid getting buffeted by the various ideas that happens to be the flavor of the day. Right, so so the core planning has got to happen on the campuses with our constituents. So I know that I'm going to focus on retention I'm going to focus on my my black and brown men. So we do not become that conduit to prison that the K 12 have in some ways become right we have to I have to pay attention to workforce development, and I have to sort of break the barriers of the traditional understanding of credentialing. No matter what money flows to me, those are the four things that I'm going to focus on, and I can't get bounced around because somebody, you know, stand up one day and decided the pink kind of, you know, apprenticeship is prettier than the blue kind. So a lot of the responsibility, I think it's on the thought leadership of the community colleges, and what goes on those campuses, rather than allowing governmental policies with folks who are not in the field to drive us that has always been attention. And we've always had good folks like jihang to help us balance that scale. And I think that's going to be more and more important the new America reports that comes out that helps us balance the stuff that comes out of a cct. We've seen what happens when foundations and money that comes out of different places that are not related, try to drive educational policy. And we don't want to go there again, and I don't think this is different. So, you know, my colleagues and I who are doing the leadership work and community colleges we got to buckle in and do what we need to do. It's not a fun time. Well actually it is a very inspirational time to be in leadership but it's not fun. So to sort of shift gears here a little bit away from that policy lens and more into the institutional operational lens. Can you share some insights and how your faculty and sort of the academic apparatus has helped support your earn and learn programs and helping students navigate those jobs and entry into the program. You know if there's a civil lining about coven. It is that in the last 18 months. There is no daylight amongst faculty administrators. Frontline staff, our trustees, our foundation directors. I have in the 30 years that I've been in this job, never seen a period of time when we're so united. We did what we have to, I mean, I mean faculty helped us, and, and, and certainly our credit non credit folks are working together to get these internships to get a moving or apprenticeship work is coming out of our non credit area, working with our culinary, you know, credit colleagues. Um, I won't tell you that they're not tired. But a lot of the old understanding of what faculty or administrators can and cannot do has gone by the wayside. It was always a sticking point about how long it took for faculty and administration to turn something to online right because we're just moving slow we're deliberate. We turned 200, 2500 sections into online overnight, literally in two weeks. So I think the potential is there I think it opened up really new ideas of how we can shape the next decade or two decades of what higher education looks like the, from what I can see the revolution right now is in the community colleges. Because I don't think any of any two of us are going to go back to what we looked like 18 months ago, the rapid reemployment program, where we're taking these programs and squeezing them into like six week to eight week programs. They're credentialing students they're out there in the workforce. It's a powerful powerful time but man we're all tired. I hear that just a little bit of a follow up on it. I know I think the learner and opportunities are all for credit and they all align to like the course outcomes right what was that process like when you were working with faculty. Oh, I mean I can't speak to it but I didn't work with them directly. I think to to to to take student learning outcomes and take it into the workplace mentors was was a little bit of a learning process for everyone. We learned something also as the program went on. We used to say the student oh you know come on take a look at this job posting I think it may be you and the students will go no no no no I don't know anything about that this too much of a risk for me I don't want to go there. But what our staff and faculty are doing now is looking at the outcomes of the courses that the students are taking in their discipline and matching those course outcomes to what the job postings are looking for us outcomes. We're going directly to the students to say, you can do this job, because you've learned these skills and we've matched it and we know you've done it. So, instead of a push it's really a poll. So the recruitment process is different. It also means that is a more equitable process, because students are not self selecting. So this is a shameful history chapter in our learning earn in that we thought we're doing great and we looked at the students are in a program so like, Oh, lots of international students and not so many native students and you know the ones that are native students are not black and brown. So, we did a complete revamping of that. By being deliberate by looking at our black and brown men and you know our BIPOC populations and saying, we've got to do a better job, we've got to pull them out and say to them here's something for you. I think the Mahara faculty and staff reacting I think they're iterating, they're iterating really fast. I think without that iteration without the faculty involvement, we would not have gotten those slots from the museums, or the small businesses. Yeah, it takes more than just administration it really does take the faculty in there, helping pull students out. It's been an amazing conversation and I want to thank both of you so much for your time I wanted to ask about working with employers but we totally ran out of time but it was such a rich conversation, I just really appreciate you spending this afternoon with us and really elevate this idea of subsidized work study jobs for students and to get them the support they need and the education they need and the connection to the institution they need to get them to where they're to their educational goals and thank you. Thank you to any Casey for supporting the work. Thank you to my colleagues Mary Allison Ivy loves, who did a wonderful job as well, and thank you all for joining us this afternoon it was a really powerful conversation so thanks again.