Introduction

Access to high-quality higher education is an important component of strengthening the early childhood education (ECE) workforce. Qualification requirements for this workforce in the United States vary significantly by setting, age group served, and state.¹ Whether early educators are pursuing an associate degree, a bachelor’s degree, or certification, higher education programs can equip them with the skills and knowledge necessary to support young children’s learning and development. But for more early educators to realize the promise of higher education, significant reform is needed to improve access and program quality.

Early education programs are increasing credentialing requirements, and early educators are up to the challenge of meeting these standards if they have adequate supports for success.² But higher education has become so expensive that pursuing a degree can feel out of reach.³ Millions of college students end up saddled with high debt, and early educators rarely earn enough to pay it off in a reasonable amount of time.⁴ To complicate matters, most early educators are “nontraditional” students—meaning they are over 24 years old, have children of their own, are the first in their families to attend college, and already have full-time jobs, characteristics that have been shown to “interfere with successful completion of educational objectives” in the words of the U.S. Department of Education.⁵ These students face different challenges than their “traditional” peers, and many institutions of higher education (IHEs) are ill-equipped to meet their needs.

Too often in discussions about early educator preparation, faculty members, deans, and higher education policy content experts are left out of the conversation. The levers of change are often in the higher education systems, and ECE stakeholders can benefit from developing stronger relationships with peers in higher education. This idea was the genesis for our working group. In February 2019, our Early & Elementary Education Policy team hosted a meeting with diverse experts across fields to delve into how IHEs equip those teaching and caring for young children. Focusing on the perspective of the institution, we identified obstacles to improving higher education access and quality.⁶

Last fall, with support from the Alliance for Early Success, New America convened the Supporting Early Educator Degree Attainment working group to delve into the barriers IHEs face to serving and preparing early educators and to explore opportunities for reform.⁷ The group selected five pressing barriers, identified promising practices to address those barriers, and then examined the policy and institutional levers needed for broader reform. This paper presents the working group’s findings and shines a light on 11 of the bright spots that already exist in IHEs around the country.

Since the group wrapped up in December, the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on the world, and the ECE and higher education sectors in the United States have not been spared. Now more than ever, IHEs and policymakers need to think creatively about how to serve and support students. With many child care centers shutting their doors, early educators face less stability in their jobs. This, coupled with the additional economic and social effects of COVID-19, will surely make pursuing higher education even more difficult. As centers and schools adapt to a new reality, early educators will need skills, whether via remote or in-person learning, to serve children facing trauma. And, of course, IHEs are grappling with how to safely and effectively serve their own students. These challenging times expose the fragility of our existing systems, but also offer the opportunity to accelerate innovation and allow for flexibility where it has been lacking.