How community colleges kept students engaged during and after the pandemic

Community colleges struggled with enrollment drops during the pandemic. FG Trade via Getty Images by Xueli Wang, University of Wisconsin-Madison When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it prompted enrollment drops at community and technical colleges. But it also spurred the schools to innovate in an effort to better serve students who might otherwise fall through the cracks. Xueli Wang, a professor of higher education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, captures some of the steps that community colleges took in her newly released book, “Delivering Promise: Equity-Driven Educational Change and Innovation in Community and Technical Colleges.” She expounds on a few examples in the below Q&A. How did the pandemic change community colleges and technical colleges? The pandemic prompted the schools to tackle some long-existing challenges. One of the things they began to do was form new partnerships with four-year colleges and universities. In the state of Wisconsin, for example, the Wisconsin Technical College System and the University of Wisconsin System came together in 2021 to create the Universal Credit Transfer Agreement. The agreement outlines a core set of courses — up to 72 credits — that transfer within the two systems. This makes it easier for students, especially those who are...