Saint Paul College will collaborate with the Lab and four other leading community colleges across the nation to develop and implement a strategic plan focused on innovation and student success. These plans, buttressed by the Lab’s Future of Learning Framework and human-centered design approach, will strive to make learners’ skills more visible to employers and educational pathways clearer and stackable and ensure learners have job-relevant applied learning experiences and equitable access to support services.

“The Reimagining Community College Design Challenge provides a perfect springboard to build on our successes and chart a bold new course for the future,” said President Deidra Peaslee. “This is our opportunity to clearly articulate the value of a Saint Paul College education and ensure that both students and employers recognize the exceptional skills and knowledge our graduates possess.”

Community colleges—which altogether serve about 9 million learners—are gaining national recognition as providers of accessible, affordable pathways to economic mobility. Known for hyper-local employer partnerships and short-term credentials and certificates, community colleges connect learners with good-quality, well-paying jobs, resulting in lower unemployment rates and higher earnings potential than workers with a high school diploma or less. However, community colleges often operate with less staff, lean budgets, and minimal resources, making it more challenging to add new courses to their catalogs to meet evolving local workforce demands—and leaving learners seeking to level up their professional skills with fewer options.

Leveraging the strategic planning process as a catalyst for innovation will simultaneously help institutions secure critical local, state, and federal support, meet accreditation requirements, and bring learners, employers, faculty, administrators, and community members into the fold. The Lab has seeded this initiative with generous support from MacKenzie Scott’s Yield Giving Foundation and is committed to raising additional funding to support the program over the next four years.

“Reimagining community colleges isn’t just an exercise in innovation—it’s necessary to ensure that these institutions remain engines of social mobility and workforce development,” said Dr. Lisa Larson, interim CEO of Education Design Lab. “By embracing bold, human-centered design, we can support colleges in their missions to meet the needs of today’s learners and tomorrow’s economy. This work is about more than redesigning colleges; it’s about reshaping futures.”

The Reimagining Community College Design Challenge builds on the success and momentum of the Lab’s Community College Growth Engine (CCGE), which uses human-centered design to build skills-based pathways. To date, CCGE has engaged nearly 100 colleges, which have designed 200+ micro-pathways to high-demand careers. Through the work with these colleges, the Lab has learned the micro-pathways design process has the potential to serve as the gateway toward institution-wide transformation as colleges deeply embed the human-centered design process into many aspects of their organizational strategies.

Selected for their innovative practices and presidential leadership, participating community colleges include:

• Rio Salado College, Arizona, led by President Kate Smith
• Saint Paul College, Minnesota, led by President Deidra Peaslee
• Forsyth Technical Community College, North Carolina, led by President Janet Spriggs
• Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C), Ohio, led by President Michael A. Baston
• Lone Star College-Tomball, Texas, led by President Lee Ann Nutt

About Education Design Lab
The Education Design Lab (the Lab) is a national nonprofit that co-designs, prototypes, and tests education-to-workforce models through a human-centered design process focused on understanding learners’ experiences, addressing equity gaps in higher education, and connecting learners to economic mobility. Learn more: www.eddesignlab.org.