NACE Advocacy Efforts Give Our Members a Voice for Change

By Dawn Carter

“Member Voices” is typically the place where individual NACE members share their insights, ideas, and suggestions around a range of topics. Here, I’d like to share with you how our collective voice can exact positive change and exert influence for the benefit of our institutions, organizations, and the students we develop and recruit.

Through the NACE Advocacy Advisory Committee, we—NACE members—engage with public policy makers, government representatives, relevant associations and organizations, and the public around issues that are important to our work and aligned with our goals and values. The committee, of which I am chair, gives all of us a voice in the national conversation around the college-educated workforce.

The Advocacy Advisory Committee meets throughout the year to discuss policies, issues, and legislation. NACE Leadership also meet with government representatives as well as other professional associations and organizations focused on higher education and the workforce. Often, as part of these discussions, NACE develops or signs on to position statements that detail the issues and offer recommendations. Through these efforts, our collective voice is heard in Washington and beyond.

In considering how to best elevate our members’ voices for 2021-22, two key factors guide our focus: our continued commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and the changing demographics of high school graduates, which will likely have an outsized impact on higher education enrollments moving forward.

Using those two factors as a guiding force, we determined that our focus for this legislative session would focus on advocating for public policies that support higher education opportunities aimed at low-income, underrepresented, or underserved students. Specifically, we have identified the following subjects as priorities:

• Increasing Pell Grant levels;
• Increased institutional support for public, two-Year colleges;
• Classroom to Careers Act;
• College Transparency Act;
• DACA legislative solution;
• Improving international student status and processing;
• Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA); and
• Pay equity.

By working with government officials and partnering with like-minded organizations, NACE is able to use the strength of our members to work toward positive change for today’s college students and tomorrow’s recruits!

To learn more about our advocacy and why we believe these eight topics should be elevated on behalf of NACE members across the country, click here.