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The "Some College, No Degree" Population is Growing

What if nearly 40 million Americans hold the key to solving our enrollment crisis, but we're failing to unlock it?

These are the students in the 'some college, no degree' category, a population that's grown by 800,000 in just one year: 37.6 million Americans fell into the "some college, no degree" category as of July 2025, up from 36.8 million in 2024.

Recent data from the National Student Clearinghouse's Tracking Transfer report reveals the complex reality facing community college students specifically. Among students who started community college in fall 2017, the six-year bachelor's completion rate is less than 66%. For transfers from community colleges to private colleges, the graduation rate is less than 60%, as shown below.

Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce projects that 72% of U.S. jobs will require postsecondary education or training by 2031. With the U.S. averaging 18.5 million job openings annually, and 12.5 million requiring college (67.5% of jobs), the stakes for finishing a degree couldn't be higher.

As we continue in Fall 2025, a crucial question remains: How can we ensure students who choose to seek a four-year degree graduate?

At the institutional level, this translates to a growing tide of union activity:

➤ Unionized faculty members increased by 7.5%, now totaling over 402,000 across 600+ institutions

➤ Gen Z is the most supportive generation of unions, with a mean approval rating of 64.3, compared with 60.5 for Millennials, 57.8 for Gen Xers, and 57.2 for Baby Boomers. Gen Zers with college degrees support unions with roughly the same rating as those without a college degree, at 63.7 and 64.4, respectively, while Baby Boomers and Gen Xers without a college degree are more supportive of unions than those who graduated from college.

➤ Graduate student employees’ unionization has surged 133% since 2012, now encompassing roughly 38% of these workers across more than 150,000 individuals in 81 bargaining units.

➤ Research on teacher strikes (2007–2023) shows they have driven meaningful wage gains (an average of 3% after one year and up to 8% after five years) alongside improved working conditions, without having long-term impacts on student achievement or outcomes

Below are strategies for navigating union relationships on your campus and building collaborative partnerships that serve the institutional mission while acknowledging the genuine operational complexities that organized labor creates.

1. Plan Ahead for Bargaining

Collective bargaining is a permanent fixture. Unionized employees have established formal mechanisms to negotiate compensation and benefits. Leaders must integrate these processes into institutional planning to ensure they avoid lockouts or strikes that could impact the mission and operation of the institution. Annual conversations that confirm policies such as cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) and yearly inflation salary increases have become standard.

A neutral party may be the best option. Compensation and benefit management requires an intentional strategy, consistent application, and long-term sustainability planning. This often includes a third-party review of compensation, salary grades, and other structures to ensure fairness and market alignment.

2. Navigate Shared Governance

Collaboration builds credibility. Even when faculty and staff participation is contractually required, leaders must approach shared governance as a strategic asset that can enhance decision-making, rather than viewing it as procedural compliance. Well-conceived strategic initiatives can face resistance if stakeholders perceive the decision-making process as exclusionary, rushed, or top-down. Transparent, consistent engagement with union leadership builds credibility for administrators and fosters buy-in.

3. Build Toward Collaborative Relationships

Financial transparency builds understanding. When union leaders have clear insight into institutional financial realities, it allows institutions to identify potential concerns and address them before they become formal grievances or public disputes. Share non-confidential budget data and discuss how external pressures impact institutional planning

Acknowledge operational complexity. Prolonged negotiation timelines, coordination across multiple bargaining units, and the administrative demands of contract management create genuine leadership challenges. Recognizing these realities while maintaining commitment to partnership demonstrates authentic leadership rather than superficial cooperation.

4. Managing Multi-Union Environments

Many institutions navigate simultaneous relationships with faculty staff, graduate students, and postdoc unions. Each operates on different contract cycles with distinct priorities, creating coordination complexity that requires strategic planning.

Count your campus unions and map their contract renewal dates. If more than two expire within six months of each other, prioritize negotiation planning now.

Develop synchronized communication strategies across all bargaining units to prevent conflicting messages or expectations. Consider establishing regular inter-union dialogue opportunities to address campus-wide issues that affect multiple stakeholders.

Invest in dedicated labor relations expertise. The administrative sophistication required to manage multiple contracts, grievance procedures, and negotiation schedules often exceeds the capacity of traditional HR, Legal, and Financial teams. Having an administrator skilled in handling negotiations can make a significant difference.

5. Crisis Communication and Stakeholder Management

When negotiations stall or strikes occur, presidential communication becomes critical. Messages must balance support for faculty while addressing multiple audiences: staff, students, donors, trustees, and the broader community.

• Develop pre-negotiation communication frameworks that establish transparency and regular mechanisms, preventing information vacuums that fuel speculation and mistrust

• Maintain consistent messaging about institutional values and commitment to both employee welfare and the institutional mission, even during contentious periods

What Unions Can Do to Ensure Success

While institutional leadership bears responsibility for fostering collaborative relationships, success also depends on well-intentioned approaches by unions that listen to member interests while continuing to serve the mission of the institution.

Financial Literacy and Institutional Understanding: Union leaders who invest time in understanding and educating their members on institutional finances, revenue sources, and budget constraints can advocate more effectively for sustainable solutions. This knowledge enables unions to propose creative alternatives during difficult budget periods rather than simply opposing administrative proposals and creating deadlocks.

Long-term Strategic Thinking: The most effective unions balance immediate member needs with long-term viability. This includes considering how compensation demands affect institutional competitiveness, student affordability, and program sustainability. Unions that think strategically about institutional health ultimately serve their members better.

Professional Negotiation Practices: Union success depends on data-driven negotiation approaches. This means arriving at bargaining tables with unbiased market research, comparative analysis, and realistic timelines, and avoiding these 10 Hard-Bargaining Tactics.

Member Communication and Education: Internal union communication should prepare members for negotiation realities, including potential compromises and timeline expectations. Well-informed membership creates space for leadership to negotiate effectively without pressure for immediate gains. Union leaders often back themselves into corners when they make unrealistic promises to their members.

Collaborative Problem-Solving: The strongest relationships emerge when faculty leaders approach institutional challenges as shared problems requiring joint solutions. This might mean listening to leadership and asking how best to support the institution, contributing to efficiency initiatives, or collaborating on grants that benefit both institutional mission and working conditions.

Cross-Union Coordination: In multi-union environments, coordinate messaging across different bargaining units to prevent institutional overload and competing demands that ultimately harm all union interests.

Higher education is facing unprecedented challenges: demographic changes, political pressure, financial strains, and public skepticism. On campus, salaries, governance, and planning are being shaped in real time. Institutional strategies to navigate these initiatives must involve our unions and their members rather than exclude them.

The most effective leaders won't see unions as obstacles; they'll build collaborative relationships with integrity, transparency, and a common purpose. Effective unions will approach partnerships with institutional literacy, strategic thinking, and commitment to shared success.

Blog: The Growing Need for Reliable Academic Data

With nearly half of the Department of Education workforce eliminated, the federal data infrastructure that our colleges and universities have long relied upon is crumbling. Financial aid processing has become sluggish and unpredictable. National academic statistics have and will continue to arrive late or not at all. Research offices like the Institute of Education Sciences operate with skeleton crews, if they operate at all.

The institutions that will thrive are those that create robust internal analytics capabilities and pair them with reliable third-party data. These systems should capture real-time insights on student performance, monitor enrollment and retention patterns as they emerge, assess program health before problems become crises, and optimize resource allocation based on actual usage data rather than outdated federal benchmarks or two-year-old data.

Read our newest blog on how leading institutions are transforming their data strategies, the specific metrics that matter most right now, and the practical steps your institution can take to build analytics independence before the next crisis hits.

Letter from the Editor: Modes of Future Communications

2025 saw the return of our monthly newsletter, and I want to thank you all for making it a great success. This newsletter aims to offer updates, insights, and facts that keep you informed about higher education. It is designed to be a deep-dive piece that steps back from the day-to-day to explore the bigger trends shaping our industry and partner institutions.

Building on this foundation, we also began sending weekly updates that are shorter in substance, easy to digest, and data-centered. After testing this communication pattern over the past month and receiving positive feedback, we are committed to continuing this weekly communication.

Each month, you can expect to receive this monthly newsletter on the 2nd Tuesday of each month. On every other Tuesday, you will receive our Weekly Stats and Strategies, a snapshot of three key stats and one thought piece you may have missed from the previous week.

Over the next few weeks, look out for more opportunities to engage with our excellent team of consultants.

As always, thank you for tuning in and all you do each day to support and lead our institutions. Our industry needs strong, mission-driven leaders like you all more than ever.

Jack Corby

Vice President



603-863-4704

info@stevensstrategy.com

Grantham, NH 03753

Quiz Answer: D) The University of Illinois

Howard Garns graduated from the University of Illinois in 1926 with a degree in Architectural Engineering. Garns served in World War II and then had a long career as an architect in Indianapolis, working on puzzles on the side.

Garns is not the only famous game maker to graduate from Illinois: John Spinello, the inventor of Operation, graduated in 1962.

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