National Leader in Community College Innovation Launches New Challenge to Design the College of the Future

Education Design Lab has convened five community colleges across the U.S. to develop and implement strategic plans aimed at transforming their institutions and improving economic outcomes for learners.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Education Design Lab (the Lab) today announced the first cohort of its Reimagining Community College Design Challenge, a new initiative that builds upon more than a decade of Lab-led efforts to envision and plan for a new age of community colleges. Together with the Lab, five community colleges across the nation will work to reorient their program offerings around new majority learners and the future-proof skills they need to succeed in the workforce.

Community colleges—which altogether serve about 9 million learners—are gaining national recognition as providers of accessible, affordable pathways to economic mobility. Known for hyper-local employer partnerships and short-term credentials and certificates, community colleges connect learners with good-quality, well-paying jobs, resulting in lower unemployment rates and higher earnings potential than workers with a high school diploma or less. However, community colleges often operate with less staff, lean budgets, and minimal resources, making it more challenging to add new courses to their catalogs to meet evolving local workforce demands—and leaving learners seeking to level up their professional skills with fewer options.

"Students come to us with a vision of a brighter future and the belief that education can help them get there. It is our job to deliver on that belief by developing programs that help learners achieve an economic advantage and access meaningful careers," said Dr. Michael A. Baston, President of Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) in Cleveland. "Together with Education Design Lab, we are seizing a once-in-a-generation chance to transform the way we meet students' needs and shore up faith in community college as a pathway to greater opportunity."

Over the next three to five years and with the Lab's guidance, participating institutions will develop strategic plans to reimagine community college for the future, implement those plans, and measure their success. These plans, buttressed by the Lab's Future of Learning Framework and human-centered design approach, will strive to make learners' skills more visible to employers and educational pathways clearer and stackable and ensure learners have job-relevant applied learning experiences and equitable access to support services.

Selected for their innovative practices and presidential leadership, participating community colleges include:

• Rio Salado College, Arizona, led by President Kate Smith
• St. Paul College, Minnesota, led by President Deidra Peaslee
• Forsyth Technical Community College, North Carolina, led by President Janet Spriggs
• Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C), Ohio, led by President Michael A. Baston
• Lone Star College-Tomball, Texas, led by President Lee Ann Nutt

Leveraging the strategic planning process as a catalyst for innovation will simultaneously help institutions secure critical local, state, and federal support; meet accreditation requirements; and bring learners, employers, faculty, administrators, and community members into the fold. The Lab has seeded this initiative with generous support from MacKenzie Scott's Yield Giving foundation and is committed to raise additional funding to support the program over the next four years.

"Reimagining community colleges isn't just an exercise in innovation—it's necessary to ensure that these institutions remain engines of social mobility and workforce development," said Dr. Lisa Larson, interim CEO of Education Design Lab. "By embracing bold, human-centered design, we can support colleges in their missions to meet the needs of today's learners and tomorrow's economy. This work is about more than redesigning colleges; it's about reshaping futures."

The Reimagining Community College Design Challenge builds on the success and momentum of the Lab's Community College Growth Engine (CCGE), which uses human-centered design to build skills-based pathways. To date, CCGE has engaged nearly 100 colleges, which have designed 200+ micro-pathways to high-demand careers. Through the work with these colleges, the Lab has learned the micro-pathways design process has the potential to serve as the gateway toward institution-wide transformation as colleges deeply embed the human-centered design process into many aspects of their organizational strategies.

About Education Design Lab

The Education Design Lab (the Lab) is a national nonprofit that co-designs, prototypes, and tests education-to-workforce models through a human-centered design process focused on understanding learners' experiences, addressing equity gaps in higher education, and connecting learners to economic mobility. Learn more: www.eddesignlab.org.

SOURCE Education Design Lab