College leaders are focused on economic development and the value of a degree. And, our Local Network is growing.

Competing priorities for campuses

Are lawmakers and higher education officials on the same page when it comes to legislative priorities for the new year? That’s a question I’ve been thinking about a lot this month as state legislatures reconvene and will likely debate key issues like budgets and what's OK to say or teach on campus.

This week I spoke with Tom Harnisch, vice president for government relations at the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. His organization recently surveyed members — higher ed commissioners, university presidents and the like — on 25 policy issues and asked them to rate their importance in 2024.

It’s notable that the issues higher ed officials identified as very important are juxtaposed with what state legislators are expected to highlight this year’s sessions. In SHEEO’s survey, DEI curriculum and programming was nearly the lowest-ranked priority. Just last week, our reporter Divya Kumar reported Florida’s State Board of Education approved rules to limit spending on diversity efforts to end “state-sponsored discrimination.” Efforts like this will probably remain a hot topic as the presidential election nears, Harnisch said.

“There's going to be a focus on hot button issues going into November,” Harnisch said. “It could be issues like DEI, or other social and cultural issues.”

Economic development was the top policy issue for the second year in a row, and Harnisch expects it will remain a priority for the foreseeable future.

“The ways that legislators and governors talk about higher education primarily is in the context of its contributions to state economic and workforce development goals,” Harnisch said. “So they're constantly looking at what are the available jobs in the state and making sure that they have people who are trained and educated to fill those jobs.”

This year we can expect a continued focus at the statehouse level on the relevance and value of a college degree, Harnisch said. SHEEO asked members about this, too — the “value proposition” of college was number three in members’ ranked list of priorities.

I was surprised to see FAFSA completion wasn’t a top 10 priority, given the issues and confusion surrounding the revamped federal aid program. A closer look at the survey explains this: Members took the survey November 2023, a month before the unexpectedly rocky rollout of the new FAFSA. Our reporters at El Paso Matters and the Texas Tribune wrote helpful explainers this month to help students navigate the new financial aid process.

Elsewhere on Open Campus

From Pittsburgh: Emma Folts examined how a local community college with a pandemic-induced enrollment decline is capitalizing on a recent rebound.

From Indiana: Claire Rafford at Mirror Indy wrote about how lawmakers are considering a bill that would require four-year public universities to examine how to offer associate degrees to some students who never finished — a reversal of more than two decades of policy. 

This concept is already realized in Colorado: Jason Gonzales wrote this week about the Colorado Re-Engaged Initiative, which provides associate degrees to students who earned at least 70 college credits but never finished their four-year degree.

We’re growing: Earlier this month we announced we partnered with THE CITY in New York. We’ve since added WUNC in North Carolina. Brianna Atkinson will cover higher education statewide at WUNC. Atkinson is a North Carolina native and the station’s 2023 Fletcher Fellow.

The new partnership brings Open Campus’s network to a total of 12 newsrooms and 15 reporters.

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