Learning Ecosystems

In that spirit, in this post I examine a report from Virginia’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) on Virginia’s Community Colleges and the changing higher-education landscape. The report offers a rich view of how several major issues are evolving at the institutional level over time, an instructive case study in big changes and their implications.

Its empirical depth also prompts broader questions we should ask across higher education.

• What does the shift toward career education and short-term training mean for institutional costs and funding?
• How do we deliver effective student supports as enrollment moves online?
• As demand shifts away from on-campus learning, do physical campuses need to get smaller?

• Are we seeing a generalizable movement from academic programs to CTE to short-term options? If so, what does that imply for how community colleges are staffed and funded?
• As online learning becomes a larger, permanent share of enrollment, do student services need a true bimodal redesign, built to serve both online and on-campus students effectively? Evidence suggests this urgent question is not being addressed, especially in cash-strapped community colleges.
• As online learning grows, what happens to physical campuses? Improving space utilization likely means downsizing, which carries other implications. Campuses are community anchors, even for online students—so finding the right balance deserves serious debate.