Barriers Faced by Institutions of Higher Education

While IHEs face numerous barriers to serving early educators well, the working group was tasked with narrowing down its focus to no more than five. We chose the following:

1. Providing the social, academic, and financial supports that this population of students (e.g., low-income, diverse, first generation, part-time) needs to be successful.
   Early educators pursuing higher education are often juggling coursework with full-time jobs and family responsibilities, all while earning extremely low wages. Navigating higher education systems can be tricky, especially if students have been out of school for years or are the first in their families to attend college.

   Without supports like accessible counseling and advising services, it can be hard for students to stay on track to meet their academic and career goals. Lack of access to on-campus or affordable child care can also make it difficult for student parents to not only attend class, but also to study and meet with advisors.¹ Students also need academic supports such as accessible tutoring to address knowledge gaps and difficulties with coursework, flexibility around class time and location to accommodate their work and family responsibilities, and transfer agreements across institutions.

   Perhaps most critically, the cost of higher education is a major barrier to entry and completion for early educators. College is expensive and federal aid, grants, and scholarships rarely cover the full cost of attendance.² Other costs include living expenses, books, and transportation. Students often end up strapped with debt and many have difficulty repaying it. This is exacerbated when students do not complete their programs, limiting their career growth and earnings potential.³ Even students who do graduate often take years longer than expected to do so, increasing the cost of the degree.⁴

   Some social and academic supports can be provided relatively easily if IHEs are aware of what students need, such as flexible class schedules. Providing other supports requires more significant up-front costs and personnel. ECE degree programs present particular challenges; given the low earnings graduates typically make in the workforce (especially relative to the cost of earning a degree), some colleges will not even offer them.

2. Serving the particular needs of this linguistically diverse workforce.
   Twenty-seven percent of the ECE workforce speaks a language other than English.⁵ This population’s multilingualism is an asset, as dual language learners make up a growing proportion of the nation’s young students and research shows that these children benefit from participation in programs that support the development of their home languages as well as English.⁶ Teachers who speak the home languages of the population they serve can better communicate with children and families.

   Unfortunately, IHEs often do not have the capacity to meet the needs of this diverse student population. At many IHEs, courses and texts are only offered in English, and advisors only speak English, putting these students at a disadvantage. In a 2018 survey by the T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood National Center, a majority of scholarship recipients and their higher education faculty reported that it was “very difficult or difficult” for English language learners to find a college advisor who could speak their native language, and find in-class translation services, textbooks, readings, and courses taught in their home language.⁷ These challenges exacerbate bifurcation in the ECE field, where those in leadership positions are more likely to be white and monolingual English speakers.⁸

3. Supporting developmental education and general education requirements.
   Before they can delve into coursework related to early learning and child development, many early educators are required to take developmental (remedial) education courses and complete general education requirements. A 2016 report from the Center for American Progress went so far as to call developmental education a “systemic black hole from which students are unlikely to emerge.”⁹ Remedial courses are expensive insofar as they do not count towards a degree. It is also course content that a student has struggled with in the past or is unfamiliar with, which can be discouraging. Students who have to take developmental education courses are less likely to complete their programs.¹⁰

   Among early educators, math classes tend to be the greatest barrier.¹¹ But this problem is not unique to early educators. Almost 60 percent of students at community colleges and 30 percent of students at four-year schools are placed into some kind of developmental math.¹² Of those, only 33 percent finish all of their remedial courses, and fewer still pass the introductory, college-level math course.¹³ Math requirements pose a hurdle to program completion even though college-level math is not typically part of an early educator’s day-to-day job. There is rarely alignment between a program’s math requirements and the knowledge that is relevant to teaching early childhood math.

4. Navigating quality and access challenges with clinical experiences.
   Opportunities to observe and practice teaching are crucial to ensuring early educators learn how to put the knowledge and skills gained in coursework into practice.¹⁴ In higher education these opportunities are often referred to as clinical experiences, which can include short-term experiences and longer-term intensive placements like student teaching. Requirements vary substantially between programs, but there are two primary challenges with clinical experiences in their current form: quality and access.

   While almost all early educator preparation programs require candidates to participate in some type of clinical experience, requirements tend to focus more on completing a set number of hours than on the quality of the experience.¹⁵ Candidates are sometimes placed in early education classrooms where teachers do not set a positive example or provide valuable support. It can be difficult for IHEs to ensure all students are placed with skilled mentor teachers that are prepared to link students’ coursework to their clinical practice. Additionally, clinical experiences might not expose students to varied early learning environments or allow them to take on real responsibilities.

   In addition, with most candidates already in the workforce, it can be difficult for them to take time away from their current jobs to participate in unpaid clinical experiences. Many students complete their required hours in their workplaces as a matter of convenience, even though it may not provide examples of best practices in teaching. In a 2018 survey from T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood National Center on barriers to higher education access and success, “the requirement that all student practicums must be done outside the student’s current workplace was identified in the top barriers” for counselors, faculty, and students.¹⁶ Though there is nothing inherently wrong with completing a clinical experience at one’s place of work, students can benefit from exposure to new environments and responsibilities. No consensus yet exists in the early education field on the appropriate requirements for field placements.

5. Supporting faculty recruitment and development.
   High-quality preparation programs depend on skilled faculty. Yet faculty members do not always have the knowledge, hands-on experience, or resources to support and develop each candidate. This is exacerbated by the lack of diversity among faculty compared to the demographics of candidates and, even more, of the children that early educators serve.¹⁷

   Doctoral programs in ECE are rare. Early educator preparation programs, like academic disciplines across higher education, rely heavily on part-time or adjunct faculty both for ease of hiring and to save money.¹⁸ According to the National Academy of Medicine’s Transforming the Workforce report, this “can lead to inconsistent teaching practices, as well as long work hours, more administrative tasks, low salaries, and few benefits for faculty, all of which can negatively affect student learning.”¹⁹ However, tenure is not necessarily synonymous with quality, either. Tenured faculty or those on the tenure track may prioritize research over teaching responsibilities because of how universities make promotion decisions. Adjuncts are sometimes better at tying together theory and practice because they have the benefit of recent field experience.

   There is also concern in the early education field that faculty preparedness varies significantly among and within programs.²⁰ Faculty members should have an academic and real-life understanding of teacher education and pedagogy, as well as child development from birth through age 8. But with the field constantly growing, professors can feel ill-prepared to cover certain topics, such as STEM or culturally responsive teaching, which may not have been part of their own preparation years earlier. Unfortunately, quality professional development for faculty is rare or even nonexistent, and most professors do not have access to communities of practice to build their skills.