Official Higher Education Regional Alliance (HERA) Launch
Yesterday, we gathered along with 18 colleges and universities across our region to celebrate the launch of the Higher Education Regional Alliance (HERA). HERA, which was first announced in 2018, represents more than 150,000 students across southeastern Wisconsin who are key to driving the economy. HERA aims to connect businesses with the nearly 90% of graduating college and university students who stay in Wisconsin to work. This group of higher education institutions, along with partner organizations, is dedicated to closing achievement gaps and educating students today to become an innovative and nimble workforce that meets the needs of the region’s industries.
In the months leading up to this official launch, we worked with our StriveTogether partners at Milwaukee Succeeds and Building our Future in Kenosha County to gather regional data and create HERA’s data dashboards to uncover whats working, and whats not, and see where equity gaps exist in southeastern Wisconsin. For example, in this area, only 16 of 20 high school freshman will graduate from high school. Of those that graduate, only 12 will enroll in college, and only five of those 12 will graduate from college with a post-secondary degree. In order to reach a state level goal of 60% of residents with a post-secondary credential by 2027, these higher education institutions recognize that collaboration needs to supersede competition so that students start and stay on track to succeed.
At the event, members from different universities spoke to the importance of this work. From our partnership, Vice Chancellor Rob Ducoffee of UW-Parkside discussed the importance of aligning, evolving, and innovating educational practices for HERA and some early successes the program has had since 2018. These include helping potential transfer or continuing students uncover more efficient pathways to completion and strategies to improve graduation forecasts, expand high demand programs, and increase partnerships within institutions and employers. Zina Haywood, Executive Vice President of Gateway Technical College, spoke to the importance of expanding talent bridges so that more students have direct pathways into internships and careers.
Our participation in HERA, along with our partners UW-Parkside and Gateway Technical College, is a larger part of our work to increase college enrollment and completion and prepare Racine County residents for success in the workforce. In Racine County, 55% of jobs require some kind of post-secondary credential, but only 37% of Racine County residents have those credentials. We have already seen great steps forward in our partnership’s Talent Hub work: aligning math pathways to reduce the need for separate remediation credits and starting students on track to graduate by taking 30 credits in their first year. Our work with HERA will scale these efforts to the entire region, impacting more than 150,000 students.