Goal: To improve rates of college completion, transfer, and attainment of jobs with value in the labor market – and to achieve equity in those outcomes.
Guided pathways is a strategy focused on building capacity for colleges, particularly community colleges, to design and implement equitable, structured academic and career pathways at scale, for all students. Based on research from the Community College Research Center (CCRC) and the national Pathways Collaborative and building on emerging experiences from the field, pathways is intentionally designed to increase completion rates and assist students to succeed in their higher education goals. This integrated, system-wide approach to student success based on intentionally designed, clear, coherent and structured educational experiences that seek to guide each student efficiently from entry through attainment of high-quality credentials at two and four-year institutions to careers with a focus on equity-based practices and supports.
18 SUNY community colleges - accounting for more than 155,000 students or 78% of community college enrollment - are now implementing Guided Pathways.
These practices are focused on how student enter, progress and transition to either a four year college or the workforce. Colleges embracing pathways are redesigning the student experience in order to further student access and completion.
SUNY Guided Pathways Institutes (Cohorts 1 and 2): Based on AACC Pathways Institute model where college teams participate institutes designed around the key pillars of the guided pathways framework, SUNY currently supports two cohorts of 18 community colleges. Each institute focuses on an important aspect of institutional change and pathway design and implementation with advance work by the colleges resulting in action plans. The institute combines presentations from national and state experts with facilitated discussion and planning sessions for college teams. The model supports coaches who help facilitate discussions and support teams to move forward in implementing their action plans. Monroe Community College was selected as the lead college based on their participation in the AACC Pathways 1.0 Project with support from Mohawk Valley and Rockland Community Colleges. To learn more about the SUNY Guided Pathways Institute model, please click on this link and you will be directed to the current SUNY Guided Pathways site hosted by Monroe Community College.
SUNY Pathways Projects (Cohort 3): Recognizing that colleges focus on one area of the essential practices at the start, this third cohort is focused on a pathways implementation project from one of the four essential practices. The ten participating colleges receive support from a national consultant and participate in workshops targeted at supporting project outcomes. Colleges are provided a coach to support their ongoing work.
28 Participating Community Colleges: