SPOTLIGHT | Providing Strategic Counsel for Redefining Rural Education

Strategic Advising

Oct 1

Client: Alliance of Regional Rural Colleges (ARRC)| Partnership Length: 2021 - Present| HCM Service Area Spotlight: Strategic Advice and Counsel| Portfolio Category: Post-secondary

HCM Strategists provided strategic advice and counsel to ARRC, a new advocacy and research organization that’s challenging Capitol Hill leaders to rethink how they evaluate and fund rural and regional colleges.

OVERVIEW

The Alliance of Regional Rural Colleges (ARRC) is a research collaborative and resource hub with the mission of increasing appreciation for and understanding of regional colleges and their contributions to opportunity and community wellbeing. As a center at Appalachian State University–with collaborative leadership from five regional colleges–the multi-year initiative aims to build research infrastructure, produce data-driven analysis, and disseminate accessible knowledge for a range of audiences to increase funding and appreciation for our nation’s rural-serving institutions (RSIs).

With funding support from Ascendium Group, HCM provided strategic advice, counsel and programmatic support to the ARRC as they launched the first-of-its-kind metric system to determine rurality beyond a college’s location. The hope is that widespread use of the tool will push the future architects of the Higher Education Act (HEA) reauthorization to allot more money to rural-serving institutions, which make up nearly 46% of all public, four-year institutions and more than half of all public, two-year colleges, underscoring the significant contributions of these colleges and universities to national enrollment and degree completion.

OUR WORK + IMPACT

HCM’s postsecondary policy team coordinated and staffed strategy meetings for ARRC as they worked to launch their RSI Data Tool, a groundbreaking metric that allows researchers to identify over 1,000 RSIs, educating nearly five million students.

HCM’s team also facilitated a five-part webinar series about the RSI tool targeted to different stakeholders; facilitated an expert convening to introduce ARRC to the field and explore the issues facing regional colleges; and facilitated a Washington, D.C. "roadshow" – a series of meetings with notable agencies, think tanks and foundations, and a reception event with key policymakers on the Hill to increase awareness of ARRC, the issues faced by regional colleges, and ARRC's expertise as a resource for the field.

From our partner, Kristin Hultquist: “In my 25-year career in public policy, I know that what gets measured gets done. The economic vitality of our nation's rural communities requires attention to the talent-creating colleges and universities serving them. ARRC's new research to define a rural-serving institution has critical implications for how the federal government and states identify and support learners living in rural communities.”