April 30, 2020
By Patty Reinert Mason

Read Time

When Meghan Hughes became president of Rhode Island Community College in February 2016, she confronted declining enrollment and a two-year graduation rate hovering at 4 percent — well below the national average for community colleges. The news was even worse for students of color: Only 2 percent were graduating from CCRI’s two-year programs.

Today, even as students complete their studies at home in the era of COVID-19, the school boasts an 18 percent graduation rate — 12 percent for students of color — an “incredibly good start,” Hughes says, but not nearly good enough.

“I don’t think we’re done,” she says. “I don’t think we can be done.”

In this week’s Lessons Earned podcast, Hughes recounts the journey her school — and her state — have embarked upon to improve the lives and livelihoods of Rhode Islanders, through the Rhode Island Promise college scholarship as well as adult education programs and hands-on, employer-provided training that is building a strong talent pool to grow the state’s economy.

But what happens during the COVID-19 crisis, when hands-on, skills-based learning can’t be hands-on? Unrelentingly optimistic, Hughes says the pandemic, while challenging, is a great chance for students and educators alike to adapt and learn new skills that will benefit them long after the current crisis.

“We have to look at this pandemic as presenting us with an opportunity. We have to. Otherwise I don’t know how any of us get out of bed for as long as we’re going to be working in this way,” she says. “And I genuinely believe that what this pandemic has done … is teach the entire community what it’s capable of doing when our backs are up against a wall.”

Those opportunities include educators and students alike learning new technology skills, Hughes says, but also exercising soft skills like adaptability, communication, teamwork, and resiliency.

“Look, this is a horrifying thing that’s happening to the world, and I wish it weren’t happening, but it is happening,” she says. “And I think the good that’s coming out of it, for our college, it will be a lasting good.”

Lessons Earned, co-hosted by Ben Wildavsky and Andrew Hanson, is focusing its entire second season on pandemic response in education and the workforce. To listen to the interview with Meghan Hughes, as well as other episodes, visit lessonsearned.org.

Patty Reinert Mason

Director of Content
Strada Education Network
Learn More

In the news from Strada

November 17, 2021
How To Make Sure Education After High School Is Worth the Investment
November 4, 2021
How To Set Students Up for Success After Graduation

As provost and later president at the University of Utah, Ruth Watkins called out the “hollow promise” a university delivers to college students who have access to higher education but leave without completing a degree.
October 21, 2021
How To Better Serve Latino Students

Deborah Santiago’s parents always made clear she and her three siblings would go to college.

October 7, 2021
How the HBCU Experience Builds Leaders

Roslyn Clark Artis grew up in southern West Virginia, the only African American in her graduating class. The daughter of a coal miner, she dreamed of becoming a lawyer and applied to every public university in her home state, hoping to find an affordable route to college.
September 22, 2021
6 Ways Our Conversations Are Shaping What We Know
September 8, 2021
6 Ways to Upskill Women for In-Demand Jobs
August 25, 2021
How To Connect 2-Year Students to a 4-Year School — and a Career
August 12, 2021
3 Ways New Philanthropy Models Help More People Faster
July 29, 2021
Things To Know Now About the Future of Nondegree Credentials
July 14, 2021
How Student Supports Can Reverse Enrollment Declines
June 22, 2021
‘Concerned, Worried, and Anxious’ — Insights From Recent High School Grads
June 8, 2021
What Will Reconnect Disrupted Learners to Education?
May 26, 2021
How Community Colleges Can Lead Our Economic Recovery
May 11, 2021
Mentoring, Networking, Scholarships — How This Program Pulls Them Together
April 27, 2021
How Work Changed for Good in 2020, According to Employers

Recruiting, hiring, and training improvements are here to stay, employer survey says
April 14, 2021
Innovator Spotlight: Project Basta

This career exploration and readiness program’s formula for learner success combines social capital, self-discovery to launch career pathways for first-gen grads
April 13, 2021
How To Improve Value of Higher Ed? Increase Career Support

Just half of college alumni feel it was worth it to take out loans to attend college, with even lower levels of satisfaction from Black and Latino alumni about their loans.
April 1, 2021
Powering Purpose

Invest now in community colleges to fuel economic opportunity
March 31, 2021
Ready for Work? How To Prep New Grads for Tech Jobs

Talent Path’s Learn-and-Earn Model Bridges Skills Gap Between College and Career

March 16, 2021
How to Make Online Ed Work for Students

Can the pandemic induce higher education to jump-start the future of learning?
March 2, 2021
The Hybrid Campus — More Than a Quick Fix?

Amid a pandemic crisis characterized by stay-at-home orders and travel restrictions, the leader of the career center at Stony Brook University describes its fallout with an unexpected word: freedom.
February 17, 2021
Prior Learning Assessment Gives Boost to Not Just Students but Schools, Too

In her early 20s, Kiabeth Santos was well on her way to achieving her goal of becoming a nurse. She wanted to work in health care, and she loves working with people. But then life — as it often does — got in the way.
February 2, 2021
How One HBCU Helps Students Succeed

XULA President Reynold Verret on How His HBCU Helps Students Succeed
January 21, 2021
Are We Ready for This?

Preparing the Education-Workforce System for the 100-Year Career
January 5, 2021
What Learners Taught Us in 2020 — and What Those Takeaways Mean for 2021

In the earliest days of the pandemic, researchers at Strada Center for Education Consumer Insights realized leaders across our nation would need a real-time understanding of how people were experiencing, thinking about, and feeling about work and education. The research team launched a regular survey, Public Viewpoint, to make these insights widely available — ultimately including more than 25,000 survey participants over the course of 2020.
January 4, 2021
Increasing Opportunity for All, During the Pandemic and Beyond

‘Lessons Earned’ Podcast Talks With JFF’s Michael Collins
December 22, 2020
Paving Education-to-Employment Pathways with Shared Information and Insights

The story of one learner’s journey through education and employment is told across several data sets. Enrollment and graduation outcomes tell one part of the story, with labor market information and employer data filling in the blanks. Brighthive, led by CEO and founder Matt Gee, is connecting siloed data systems so learners, employers, and educators alike can make better informed decisions about preparing tomorrow’s workforce.
December 15, 2020
7 Ways To Make College Admissions More Equitable

Application requirements favoring families who can apply and commit early without comparing financial aid packages. A preference for legacy students and star athletes. A tendency to recruit from the same high schools year after year.
December 3, 2020
A Year Inside College Admissions: ‘Lessons Earned’ Podcast Opens Season 3 With Author Jeff Selingo

It’s college application season, and anxious students and parents throughout the country are strategizing on how to get into the elite colleges of their choice. Journalist and author Jeff Selingo just spent a year inside college admissions offices at three higher education institutions to write his latest book, “Who Gets In and Why.”
November 24, 2020
Long Life Learning: Preparing for Jobs That Don’t Even Exist Yet

Long Life Learning offers readers a glimpse into a future where the average working life has no beginning, middle, or end. Contemplating a shift from the educational all-you-can-eat-buffet of college and university to an “as-you-need-it” approach to delivering education, author Michelle Weise explains why and how worker education is overdue for momentous changes.