To ensure that the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) is offering inclusive and equitable programs, supports, and policies and is actively addressing barriers to the educational success of Black, LatinX, and Native students, as well as members of the ALICE population, VCCS reached out S.I.R. to:

EXPLORE barriers to higher education  

IDENTIFY internal cultural and policy challenges preventing student success   

UNDERSTAND the appeal of community college enrollment among these populations  

DETERMINE messaging or policy changes that may serve to increase interest in local community colleges.  

To meet these objectives, S.I.R. conducted several studies from 2019 through 2022, including ALICE population students in 2019, Black students in 2021, and LatinX and Native students in 2022, using the following approach, which blended qualitative and quantitative methodologies. 

We conducted online surveys among past, current, and prospective Black, LatinX, Native, and ALICE population students throughout Virginia to quantify barriers, desires, expectations, and perceptions.

With quantitative findings in hand, we then conducted Virtual Communities (online focus groups) to explore participant experiences in more depth. Activities and topics were designed to identify and explore cultural and structural attributes that either contribute to or detract from the student experience, as well as explore the decision-making process of enrollment and examine comparative differences between VCCS and other educational options.  

S.I.R.’s recommendations from this multi-year engagement are now being used to inform positioning, messaging, and system changes aimed at improving minority student access, recruitment, and retention. 

Statewide Marketing Research 

In the fall of 2018, the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) hired S.I.R. to develop insights for a statewide marketing initiative. Five audience opportunities were identified as critical to statewide marketing success: 

• Dual Enrollment Population: high school students, coordinators, parents, and career coaches involved in Dual Enrollment.

• Transitioning Service Members: Veterans, active & transitional personnel, spouses, and education service officers. 

• Online Student Population: Current online students, college-age residents, parents of homeschoolers, and ALICE population. 

• “Up-skilling” the ALICE population (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed). 

• “Finish What You Started” Group: Students who transferred before achieving an associate’s degree. 

To augment existing research conducted by VCCS and various individual community colleges, we employed Virtual Communities (VCs) as the best methodology for exploratory insights from these audiences. During these VCs, we set out to learn: 

• Who are these audiences?  

• What is important to them?  

• When is the right time for VCCS and individual colleges to offer them messages and opportunities? 

• How do they think about their lives, and what role does college-level education play in their thinking? 

• Which messages are most compelling and appealing to them?  

Key messaging across the audience indicated that VCCS Education is perceived as a smart investment that gives students a chance at a better future through an array of options that fit where they are in life and get them where they want to be. VCs also informed a list of strategies for communicating and reinforcing these perceived benefits, including cost comparisons between VCCS and leading four-year institutions in the state, facts related to VCCS’ robust online offerings, and quotes and testimonials from students about how VCCS has changed their lives. 

In August 2021, we conducted a groundbreaking statewide survey to gauge public perceptions of Virginia’s community colleges. The Virginia Community College System (VCCS) sponsored this online survey, which engaged nearly 1,500 Virginians, providing critical insights into the general attitudes toward the state’s community colleges. The findings informed the development of system-wide advertising campaigns and established a benchmark for future research.