When I started my career in 2003, I would have been hard-pressed to think that bias existed in the enrollment management profession. After all, doesn’t every college talk about how much they want to diversify their student body? Or how they want to be a more inclusive and accepting community? Campuses seek out students from a spectrum of backgrounds—low socioeconomic status, full-pay, LGBTQ, rural, urban, suburban, international, athletes, residents of certain states…the list is quite exhaustive. And it stands to reason that hiring practices within the profession would follow the same philosophy, right?

Unfortunately, since my last position on a college campus, which ended April 2019, I have witnessed a deep and disturbing pattern whereby hiring managers rarely view the marketing, recruiting, enrollment, and retention skills cultivated by individuals in the community college sector as on par with skills cultivated at four-year institutions.

I view this as an incidence of classism in higher education. Ultimately, it hurts qualified candidates and harms institutions that could benefit from the skills, experiences, and unique perspectives that community college professionals bring to the table.

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