That was one of the key pieces of advice that a university president shared at the Association of Governing Boards’ national conference Monday during a panel on how to balance the need to increase completion rates and maintain quality. The event drew more than 1,100 individuals.
“I say this because one of the things that’s hard for higher ed—but we had to learn at Trinity and every institution must learn—is how do you build common cause and partnership with K-12 and other organizations that are building the bridge to college?” said Patricia A. McGuire, president at Trinity Washington University. “We colleges cannot do this alone. We have to be humble enough to say that we need help.”
“The key for us at Trinity was partnerships,” said McGuire, rattling off the names of several organizations—from the DC College Access Program to dream.us—that she said her institution collaborates with to help students with high academic and financial needs make it to and through college.
McGuire said colleges must also discard old ideas about who are their students. She said many at her institution are already emancipated and cannot rely on their parents for support.
For that reason, she said, her university offers students subway and bus passes to get to school and a food pantry to make sure they don’t go hungry. Eighty-five percent of the student body is Pell Grant-eligible, she said.
“We have to go back to school ourselves to learn how to support students that are going to college in a different pathway,” McGuire said. “Students who have been on the margins that are coming into college today are going to college in very different ways from the old idea. They’re going to take longer in many instances.”
