Recently, U.S. News and World Report released its annual rankings of the best colleges and universities in America. And I am proud to say Valencia College was ranked nowhere on that list.
Because rather than celebrating how many students we turn away, I’m proud of the fact that Valencia College admits the top 100% of all applicants. We measure our success by whom we include, rather than whom we exclude.
Since its founding in 1967, Valencia has been an open-access institution — a college that opens its doors to everyone. At Valencia, we believe that anyone can learn anything under the right conditions. It’s at the core of our mission to identify and create the conditions necessary for every student to succeed.
Now, as we head into the college’s 55th year, we have set bold and ambitious goals — ones that have the potential to reshape the future of Central Florida. We are rewriting the script on who goes to college, setting high expectations for our students and their learning, and preparing our graduates to participate fully in the workforce of the future. Further, we are working to be the first community college in the country with no disparities in student outcomes based on race and ethnicity.
COLLEGE ACCESS: Of all the new jobs created in our economy, 99% require some education after high school.
That’s why Valencia’s goal, in partnership with Orange and Osceola school districts, is to ensure that by 2030, 80% of their high school graduates attend a college, university, or vocational school following their high school graduation.
GRADUATION RATES: Most of our students work full- or part-time jobs while attending Valencia. Between balancing work and family responsibilities, most of our students study part-time, and therefore most of our graduates take several years to earn an associate degree. This doesn’t lessen their achievement — in fact, it makes it all the more extraordinary — and why we’ve stopped calling an associate degree a “two-year degree.”
While our graduation rates are already significantly higher than our peer institutions across the country, our goal for 2030 is to increase our five-year graduation rate to 50 percent for students of each race and ethnicity.
TRANSFER SUCCESS: One of the measures of a great community college is how well it prepares its students to succeed at the next level. Our goal is to ensure that 65% of Valencia graduates who enroll in a baccalaureate program at UCF or Valencia finish their degree within four years of starting upper-division courses.
The success of the DirectConnect to UCF partnership, which guarantees Valencia grads admission at UCF, has been remarkable. Each year, nearly 25% of UCF’s graduates are Valencia alumni. Since the creation of DirectConnect in 2006, more than 36,000 Valencia alumni have gone on to earn a bachelor’s degree from UCF. And, with Valencia’s tuition half that of state universities, this has resulted in nearly a quarter-billion (that’s billion, with a b) dollars in tuition savings for Central Florida families.
CAREER CREDENTIALS: Our accelerated skills training programs allow students to prepare for jobs that are in high demand in a matter of weeks, and our associate and workforce baccalaureate degrees are directly aligned with the needs of the Central Florida economy. We pride ourselves on the strength of our partnerships with our local business community. Our goal is that by 2030, more than 12,000 students will earn a workforce degree or industry certification annually.
By achieving these goals, we will not only support our students in reaching their dreams; we’ll lift the economic prospects for the Central Florida region as well. Yet we still live in a world where access to opportunities can be limited by your ZIP code, and we know we cannot transform the future of Central Florida alone. What will it take? Strategic partnerships with educational collaborators, business and industry leaders, elected officials, community members, and our students themselves.
We invite you to join us.
Kathleen Plinske is president of Valencia College.
Copyright © 2022, Orlando Sentinel
Copyright © 2022, Orlando Sentinel
