Colleges Contributing Value to Communities: Piloting a Framework for Action

The Colleges Contributing Value to Communities (CO3) project at the Urban Institute, funded by Lumina Foundation, aims to capture the contributions that postsecondary institutions—especially community colleges—are making to their communities but that have been ignored in previous return-on-investment (ROI) studies and rankings. The goal is to partner with college leaders in defining new measures of value that will position colleges to more effectively collaborate with community stakeholders on outcomes that will also benefit their students. Starting with a group of community college leaders, this article describes the first-year pilot work, which aimed to begin to shape a new narrative for colleges—a narrative that incorporates their community contributions, sets up leaders to build capacity and improve performance, and models how to reach shared community goals in partnership with other regional actors. This project will ultimately define metrics of success for open-access institutions that go beyond student graduation rates and employment, and provide individual colleges with tools to identify and communicate their value to community stakeholders.