Complete College America

10/27/2026

Student success doesn’t move because one office decides it should. It moves when the advisor, the provost and the state policymaker are working on the same problem at the same time.

That’s Brandon Protas’s point. Brandon is CCA’s Vice President for Alliance Engagement & Research, and it’s why the 2026 CCA Annual Convening puts all of them in one room. Three days in San Diego. Campus teams, system leaders and policy staff working through what it takes to get more students to a degree.

The $950 regular rate ends Nov. 2. Bring your team.

Dec. 1-3 | San Diego
Register: https://completecollege.org/event/the-2026-cca-annual-convening/

10/27/2026

In 1987, CCA President Dr. Yolanda Watson Spiva watched A Different World from a common room at Spelman. “It almost felt like your world was being depicted on television.”

Nearly 40 years later, CCA’s president is a Spelman parent, and she says the Netflix reboot still gets it right. “Everything you can think of is really true to form.”

HBCUs are seeing renewed excitement and growing enrollment. Let’s make sure every student who enrolls has what they need to graduate. 💛

🔗 https://www.insidehighered.com/news/institutions/minority-serving-institutions/2026/10/27/different-world-reboot-masterful

The Netflix show depicts a fictional campus responding to many of the issues weighing on HBCUs today, including federal funding cuts, terrorist threats and immigration enforcement.

10/26/2026

What does a college student look like today? Probably not the stock photo. 📸

The Complete College America Photo Library shows students as they are: working adults, parents, first-generation and transfer students, learning in classrooms, labs and advising sessions across the country. Watch the video to see the collection, then use the photos in your next report, presentation or campaign. They’re free.

▶️

Meet the Complete College America Photo Library, a collection of au...

10/22/2026

In a new interview with Higher Education Digest, CCA President Yolanda Watson Spiva, Ph.D., BCC explains why student success has to be a shared responsibility. Colleges should work as hubs alongside K–12 schools, employers, workforce partners, and community organizations.

She covers:

🔹 Treating access, completion, and workforce outcomes as one continuous journey

🔹 Working with states on data-driven policies that match local workforce needs

🔹 Re-engaging the millions of Americans with some college but no credential

🔹 Why AI needs a coordinated, campuswide strategy, with “humans at the helm”

“Graduation should never be the end of our definition of success.”

Read the full interview: https://www.highereducationdigest.com/cultivating-data-driven-policies-that-turn-credentials-into-meaningful-careers/

Dr. Yolanda Watson Spiva serves as president of Complete College America, bringing nearly three decades of leadership in postsecondary education to the organization. Her range of experience includes executive leadership, general management, federal government, public affairs, operations and academic...

10/15/2026

Student success isn't a talking point at Complete College America. It's the work.

As Dhanfu Elston, our Chief of Staff and SVP for Strategy, puts it: real progress on college completion comes from changing how institutions operate, not from restating the problem. That means rebuilding the systems students run into, closing the gaps that stall them, and holding ourselves to outcomes we can measure.

That's the theme of our 2026 Annual Convening: Doing the Work. Join us. Registration is open now. https://web.cvent.com/event/a0ab18b8-29bb-475c-b9bc-72e59c9005d9/register

10/13/2026

Higher ed doesn’t change on its own. It changes because people do the work.

Join us in San Diego, December 1–3, for the 2026 CCA Annual Convening: Doing the Work. This year includes:
✅ More hands-on workshops and interactive sessions
✅ Dedicated tracks on AI in higher education, HBCUs, and first-gen practitioners
✅ Community colleges, four-year institutions, state systems, and nonprofits working on student success together

The regular rate of $950 ends November 2. Register now: https://cvent.me/mRRz21

10/13/2026

Young Americans are reporting record-low optimism about their futures. That should get every campus leader's attention, because hope isn't a soft skill. It's a big part of what keeps students enrolled and moving toward a degree.

This piece from University Business points to two levers colleges already control:

1️⃣ Career advising that helps students connect what they're learning to where they want to go
2️⃣ Basic-needs support so housing, food and other essentials don't crowd out a student's goals

When students can see a clear path and aren't in survival mode, they're far more likely to finish. Optimism follows momentum, and institutions can build both.

How is your campus helping students see a future worth working toward?

https://universitybusiness.com/2-ways-to-make-your-students-more-optimistic/

Young Americans are increasingly uncertain about the future. Higher ed can help reverse that trend.

10/12/2026

Rural colleges are doing a lot with very little. They train their region’s workforce, bring local partners together and keep higher education within reach in communities that big systems often overlook.

At a recent Washington Monthly roundtable on rural higher education, CCA Strategic Director Meacie Fairfax said that meeting students’ basic needs should be treated as a completion strategy, not a separate social-service issue. That means housing, transportation, food and more.

“If students don’t have what they need, they cannot progress.”

She also said that close community ties often make rural colleges especially good at building support networks around students:

“The reality is that these institutions are doing incredible work. We’re learning from them.”

Read more in Community College Daily: https://www.ccdaily.com/2026/10/tipping-the-hat-to-rural-community-colleges/

A recent Washington Monthly magazine ranking of top-serving rural colleges doesn't include any community colleges, but public two-year colleges came up often during a roundtable discussion about the list last week. The list marks the first time Washington Monthly compiled a rural college ranking, wh...

10/06/2026

Two days. One big question. Real commitments. 💡

At the 2026 CCA AI and Student Success Summit in Chicago, presidents, provosts, CIOs, faculty and student success teams worked side by side to figure out how AI can strengthen belonging, persistence and learning for the students who need it most, without widening equity gaps or losing the human touch.

This wasn't a conference. It was a working convening. Every team left with a next step and a commitment to keep.

📍 Next up: the 2026 CCA Annual Convening, Dec. 1–3 in San Diego. Bring your team to the AI in Higher Education track and keep doing the work with us. 🌊 https://completecollege.org/event/the-2026-cca-annual-convening/
https://youtu.be/Yd68xqjIVp4?si=oZp4MewAYLwFa__W

In June 2026, Complete College America held its first AI & Student ...

10/05/2026

Moving competency-based education from idea to action takes a team.

Last week, representatives from institutions in the CCA Accelerator went to CBExchange in Orlando. They started with C-BEN's CBE 101 pre-conference workshop, then spent the conference learning from peers, reviewing CBE models, and naming practical first steps for their campuses.

We're grateful to C-BEN for partnering with us on this work. We can't wait to see where these teams take it next.