The changing landscape of higher education

BY HALEY PARNELL | LINK nky REPORTER

After Shelby Shelton graduated from Boone County High School in 2017, she found what felt like was a suitable job for a freshout-of-school 18-year-old at FedEx – a job no different from the 40 to 45-hour weeks she was already working while in school.

Shelton was interested in the medical field but didn’t think college was financially possible for her. She started working at 15. She didn’t have the best home life and stability growing up, so Shelton said she provided for herself.

Entering year two on the job, Shelton had doubts about working there for the rest of her life.

“I have watched my parents struggle a lot financially, and I wanted to get a career and have something that I could enjoy, you know,” Shelton said. “Provide for myself throughout the rest of my life.”

Shelton decided to break her family’s generational mold and seek information about post-secondary education.

“I took the leap of faith and just decided to go into Gateway one day and get some information,” Shelton said. “And you know that was probably one of the best things of my life.”

Aaron Thompson, president of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, said he sees fewer students pursuing a degree after high school.

“That scares me,” he said.

Many students pursue work after high school instead of college or trade school in order to get the instant gratification of making money, Thompson said.

“It’s on us to also help a student to know to delay their gratification for another year or two and get a certificate or degree that matters,” Thompson said. “Let’s get you some dual credit now while you’re here (in high school). When you get out, you may only have to spend half or one more se- mester to get a degree or whatever the case may be.”

Those who jump into the first job they can find, might be the first in the job market but also the first out of the job market, Thompson said.

It’s a sentiment Gateway Community and Technical College President/CEO Fernando Figueroa echoed.

“We need to have the idea that a high school diploma, even at its best, is not enough,” Figueroa said. “It can’t cover the waterfront, the kind of skills – the specialized skills, the communication skills, and the professional skills – that are going to be needed to navigate a world that becomes more digital and more based on a knowledge economy and less on a physical activity economy.”

Thompson agreed that a high school diploma is no longer enough.

“Every high school should be helping every kid to know that a high school diploma by itself just doesn’t get you anywhere,” he said.

Two years after graduating from high school, Shelton enrolled at Gateway’s Boone County Campus.

Her advisor helped her choose general education classes in the medical field while she worked on figuring out what specific area she wanted to pursue. Shelton finally landed on nursing.

After she completed her general education credits at the Boone County Campus, she moved to the Edgewood Campus to work on her clinical hours.

“We have lecture classes, but compared to other nursing programs, it’s more handson learning, learning in the field kind of thing,” Shelton said. “And that’s super important when it comes to nursing, because a lot of nursing students will say the text- book world and the real world are completely different.”

Shelton spoke highly of the close-knit community. She said the nursing department, with around 10 staff members, is like a family.

“You feel comfortable to go talk to anybody with concerns, and you know that they’ll be there for you,” Shelton said. “Not even just with school, with outside personal issues too.”

She said the school has also helped connect her with resources like its food pantry and financial support.

Through scholarships, Shelton goes to school tuition-free.

“I actually get money back through my financial aid that helps get me through the semester because I’m not able to work as much as I was working before I started the nursing program,” Shelton said.

With support, she was also able to enroll in the ASPIRE program (Academic Support Program to Increase Retention in Education), which seeks to help students struggling to afford college and first-generation college students.

The program helped Shelton apply to attend Northern Kentucky University in the fall and paid for her application fee. They have also provided her with school supplies, breakfast and lunches throughout the semester, and other financial support.

“There is help out there to help support you through college,” Shelton said. “It really blew my mind and shocked me my first semester when I got a financial aid check.”

Figueroa said one huge plus with community colleges is that students usually graduate with little to no debt.

Shelton said she wasn’t aware of the options a community college could provide her while she was in high school.

“Something needs to be changed, honestly,” Shelton said. “I’m not trying to bash the high schools or anything, but I do think that giving more information about more affordable options should be put out there and should be educated to all high school students. I just really thought, ‘There’s no way I could do that.’ And that’s why I just decided to go out and get a nice job and started working outside of high school because I didn’t think it was in my cards.”

As the idea of what college should look like evolves, many students are realizing there are options that fit their lives – instead of them having to fit their lives into what a college wants them to be.

“I’m getting the same degree as other people that are attending universities, and I’m going to have the same RN (registered nurse) status as them, and I was able to save so much money,” Shelton said. “The affordability and the financial aspect of it has been the biggest blessing. And I’m so thankful for that.”

Figueroa said the U.S. created communi- ty colleges as a way for students to have a starting place for post-secondary education after high school.

He said community and technical colleges aren’t what one typically imagines when they think of the classic college experience. “Though we’re a uniquely created institution, and we’ve been around for over 100 years in the United States, there’s still this idea that there’s high school and then there’s college,” Figueroa said. “And college always has dorms, college always has sports teams, college always has ivy on the walls, and what we really need is more awareness of that.”

He said research shows that students who started in community colleges and then transferred to universities often perform better than homegrown university students.

“You have the mission that focuses on and makes sure that everyone is welcome and able to succeed,” Figueroa said. “We have the support networks and the attitude of our faculty and staff that focuses on students first and their success first.”

Gateway offers certificates and associate degree programs in information technology, nursing, transportation, and advanced manufacturing. Community colleges also allow students interested in a four-year degree to complete the first 60 hours of the 120-hour degree – the usual length for a baccalaureate.

“The first half of it, you can get with us, with our spirit around student success,” Figueroa said. “So that we can ensure that you learn how to navigate this college world and get good at understanding advising, understanding how you pay for college, understanding how do you make good decisions, about when to take classes and then you have strong support services that can make sure that you’re supported in your health care needs, or your childcare needs, or your transportation needs.”

Figueroa said more people are questioning the need to get a four-year degree because many people can’t complete it in four years. “The notions that we’ve had about college focusing around university markers is becoming less attractive to most folks,” Figueroa said.

That same notion around community colleges also ties into trade schools, Thomp- son said.

“The idea of carpentry construction isn’t what it used to be,” he said. “It’s how technology is highly driven with certain skills. Especially if you’re going to move up in the construction trade; not saying you can’t be a laborer for a long time, you can, but if you look at construction from construction management, if you look at it from the standpoint of becoming your own business owner, or any of those other things, you’re going to have to have a college credential. We know that. It may not be a four-year credential, but you’re going to have to have one.”

Figueroa said Gateway’s programs, like welding, HVAC, and others, are not your grandparent’s programs. There is higher-order thinking involved with chemistry, physics, and mathematics.

“It’s reasoning attached to a very sophisticated growing set of industries,” Figueroa said. “Our region is banking on automotive manufacturing, advanced manufacturing, and food manufacturing. When you talk about information technology and cybersecurity, and you’re talking about logistics and transportation, you are talking about very sophisticated careers that require a lot of higher-order thinking and systems thinking. Right now, a post-secondary credential seems to be the best way to achieve those goals of learning those skills.”

Like Shelton’s journey from FedEx to nursing, Figueroa said people need to find meaning in their education in a program that will get them into a career that feeds their soul.