By Susan Weisman
In November 2021, I interviewed Nicole Lynn Lewis, author and CEO of Generation Hope (GH) for College & University, and the piece is featured in the August 2022 issue. Generation Hope is a nonprofit that provides mentoring, emotional support, and
financial resources to parenting students and their children to help them succeed in education. She shared with me her organization’s policy agenda, and I was struck by the shared advocacy goals of GH and AACRAO. I had been involved with AACRAO’s
Hill Day just two months earlier.
Lobbying, in recent years especially, has received a bad name as corporate lobbying has increased. In 2021, the lobbying efforts reached 3.73 billion dollars. However, not all lobbying is corporate lobbying, and 80 million was spent on lobbying for education. Last month, another set of AACRAO advocates participated in the association’s annual Hill Day. I encourage you to consider applying next year for a chance to act as an advocate for education and learn more about this fundamental American process.
Generation Hope’s Policy Agenda resulted from research and direct feedback from student scholars in their programs and from student parents across the country with
the goal to drive progress in the areas of economic and social mobility through increased access to education. AACRAO’s Policy Agenda,
derived from research and member feedback, supports policies and practices that advance equitable and inclusive access to postsecondary education, while also asserting the primacy of each institution in defining its mission to best serve the pursuit
and promotion of learning.
| AACRAO Legislative Priorities | Generation Hope Focus Areas |
Double Pell: | Higher Education: |
- Share of college costs covered by the Pell Grant is at an all-time low
- Decreased Pell leads to higher debt loads
- Permanently indexing the grant to inflation will ensure the share doesn’t
- Boosts economic mobility, over the course of a lifetime, translates into earnings of more $900,000 more than someone with only a high school degree
| - Reducing the financial hurdles to earning a postsecondary credential
- Creating educational opportunities by establishing more family-friendly campuses
- Increasing awareness of the experiences of parenting college students
|
Reverse Transfer: | Quality Childcare: |
- Allows information sharing between colleges (an exemption to FERPA) to facilitate increased college completion rates
- Anticipated shortage of educated workforce of more than 8.5 million workers
- Jobs for students without college degrees are decreasing, more than 65% of jobs require postsecondary education
| - Increasing affordability of childcare that meets families’ needs
- Reducing barriers to accessing childcare supports
|
| FERPA | Economic Mobility: |
- Include language in the Higher Education Act that will identify electronic records in the definition of educational records to diminish confusion surrounding electronic documents, such as emails, and create a national standard
- Address legally ambiguous status of records collected and maintained by third parties, or cloud-based storage
- Correcting 2012 FERPA regulations
| - Connecting college coursework to public benefits programs
- Removing barriers to postsecondary completion for fathers to advance in the workforce
- Expanding career pathways and access to family-sustaining wages
|
| Generation Hope - Policy Advocacy |
Susan Weisman is the Registrar at St. Francis College in Brooklyn, NY, and joined the college as Associate Registrar in 2006. Previously, she served as associate registrar at New York Medical College and associate director of alumnae records at Barnard
College. She earned her B.A. degree at Buffalo State College and her M.S. at Stevens Institute of Technology.
Acknowledgment
Special thanks to Michelle Mott for her contribution to this article.
The summer issue of C&U also includes the following articles:
Features
The Growth of the Test-Optional Movement: Analysis of Test-Optional Admissions Policies in American Higher Education by Angela C. Lofaro
Communicating Experiential Learning to Employers by Jordan Binkowitz, Prudence Layne, Rodney Parks, and Alexander Taylor
An Interview with Jay Goff by Jody Gordon
Commentary
A Challenge to Self-fulfilling Systems: Recognizing Transfer Currency, Exposing Equivalencies, and Tracking Outcomes by Carolyn Gentle-Genitty
Culture Adds: Divergent Thinking and the Future of the Registrar’s Office by Rodney Parks and Alexander Taylor
Becoming a Great Boss: It Looks Easy Enough, but Is It? by Kathy Callies
Reimagining the Registrar: Roles, Responsibilities, and Relationships by Andrew M. Frazier
Research in Brief
Burnout and Working Conditions in Higher Education during COVID-19: Recommendations for Policy and Practice by Jake D. Winfield and Joseph H. Paris
Teleworking: How Understanding its History Will Benefit Institutions Today by Kristin Albright Waters
Campus Viewpoint
Travel Prepared and Travel Well by Andy Altizer, Rick Clark, and John Dailey
AACRAO Review
The Higher Education Central Policy Database reviewed by Kimberly McNair
SEM as a Connector: Principles of Practice reviewed by
Timothy Rees