By Jon Marcus for The Hechinger Report.
Broadcast version by Alex Gonzalez for Nevada News Service reporting for The Hechinger Report-Public News Service Collaboration

Among its many other nicknames, this landlocked desert city is often jokingly referred to by Hawaiians as their state's ninth island.

It attracts about a quarter of a million visitors each year who fly from Honolulu. More than 40,000 have stayed permanently. There are hula-dancing and lei-making lessons and outposts of Hawaii's iconic Honolulu Cookie Company and ABC convenience stores. The Hawaiian fast-food chain Zippy's opened its first mainland location here in October.

Soon there will be another Hawaiian export in Las Vegas: the first branch campus of Hawai'i Pacific University.

The university, whose undergraduate enrollment has been falling, is among several that are opening new campuses in cities with growing populations and high student demand.

They're not the first to do this; Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Mellon University, for example, spun off a campus in Silicon Valley in 2002.

But with customers getting harder to find, more colleges and universities are going to where the students are: in fast-growing cities that don't already have a big supply of higher education institutions, such as Phoenix, Austin and Las Vegas.

"The islands are only so big. By nature, our potential student base is going to be constrained," said Jennifer Walsh, senior vice president and provost at Hawai'i Pacific, whose full-time undergraduate enrollment fell by 25 percent in the five years through 2020-21 - the last period for which official figures are available.

Las Vegas, by comparison, "is for all practical purposes an education desert. Not just an actual desert, but an education desert," Walsh said.

Market research shows that there will be high demand for the graduates of the doctoral programs in physical and occupational therapy that Hawai'i Pacific is opening here on one floor of a building in an industrial park it will share with the administrative offices of a casino operator. A master's program for physician assistants is also planned.

Many schools in other places where the number of prospective students is declining "are going through the same population analysis," Walsh said. "It's just part of what you need to do to stay relevant and viable in this very fast-evolving climate."

Those include Creighton University in Omaha and Fairfield University in Connecticut, which have opened campuses in fast-growing Phoenix and Austin, respectively, to train much-needed healthcare workers.

Unlike Hawai'i Pacific, neither Creighton nor Fairfield has been experiencing enrollment declines on their home campuses, federal figures show. But both are in regions where a drop in the number of traditional-age undergraduates is looming, according to the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, which tracks this.

Healthy enrollments "could change for a lot of us with that demographic cliff" ahead, said the Rev. Daniel Hendrickson, president of Creighton. "We've realized it can't just be business as usual."

The university's $100 million, 195,000-square-foot campus in Phoenix, which opened in 2021, includes a four-year medical school and accelerated nursing, pharmacy and occupational and physical therapy programs. This year it also started training physician assistants. Enrollment in the fall was 719 toward a goal of about 1,000 by 2025, a university spokesman said.

Phoenix is the nation's second fastest-growing city, according to the U.S. Census. But its number of healthcare workers has lagged. Arizona has a shortage of primary care physicians and needs more nurses.

"The lack of healthcare professionals was very notable, and there was a notable lack of healthcare education," Hendrickson said.

Universities are paying more attention to markets like that, said Rob Schnieders, vice president for online strategy and innovation at Fairfield. "A lot of planning goes into this, and more sophisticated research," Schnieders said of the expansion of the university's Egan School of Nursing to a satellite campus in Austin that opened in May.

Central Texas needs 3,600 more nurses than it has, for example, a gap expected to grow to more than 7,000 by 2032, the Texas Department of State Health Services projects.

"There's really exciting potential to reach new folks" in places like that, Schnieders said.

That's one of several reasons universities are opening branch campuses, said Peter Stokes, managing director at the consulting firm Huron, which helps them do that.

But when it comes to the criteria used to make a final decision about where to launch a branch campus, "enrollment and net tuition growth are going to be among the primary measures" schools consider, Stokes said - especially given "the supply and demand mismatch that we're going to be experiencing for the next decade or decade and a half," as the number of students in some parts of the country declines.

These days, he said, "almost every strategic conversation we have with a college or university involves some discussion of the role of place in that institution's identity and in the context of that institution's future."

Northeastern University in Boston has been particularly aggressive in opening campuses with programs not otherwise widely available, in cities, including Oakland, California, Portland, Maine, Charlotte, Miami, Seattle, Toronto and Vancouver.

"Our strategy has always been to listen to the market and to go to where the learners are," said Mary Ludden, senior vice president for global network and strategic initiatives at Northeastern, which also absorbed struggling Mills College near Silicon Valley in a deal finalized last year.

In this case, there's another motivation, said Northeastern's president, Joseph Aoun: Many of these campuses are focusing on older-than-traditional-age students seeking to further their educations and advance in their careers.

"The demand and the need is going to be at the lifelong-learning level," even as the supply of 18- to 22-year-olds declines, Aoun said.

"On one side you have a shrinking pool and on the other side you have an expanding pool and people need to serve the lifelong learners," he said.

Ludden said other universities and colleges are calling Northeastern for advice about how to open campuses in new markets.

"I think you're going to see more of this, because a single-campus model may not be the most viable of institutions into the future," she said.

Several other factors are driving universities to open branch campuses.

One is labor shortages, particularly in rural areas, spurring appeals from local leaders that the schools come and train workers there. The Indiana University School of Social Work this month, for instance, announced the creation of a satellite program in Lafayette, 100 miles to its north, to produce badly needed social workers trained in mental health and addiction issues.

And as remote work has emptied office buildings, there's commercial real estate available at lower-than-usual prices in in desirable markets.

The University of Southern California this year opened a $49 million, 60,000-square-foot campus in Washington, D.C., to teach undergraduate and graduate programs. Also in Washington, Johns Hopkins converted the former Newseum into a 10-story, $650 million capital campus. UCLA bought the 11-story Trust Building in Los Angeles to expand its presence downtown, part of a bid to increase enrollment.

There are other examples. Historically Black Paul Quinn College in Dallas is exploring opening a campus in California, which doesn't have any undergraduate historically Black colleges or universities.

As UCLA's expansion in downtown Los Angeles shows, branch campuses don't need to be particularly far away from their main campuses. Sacramento State University is planning to open one on the east side of its own city, where a giant development promises to significantly increase the population.

Other primary reasons that institutions open satellite campuses include the availability of outside funding and more exposure for universities not widely known outside of their traditional areas of operation, according to a study conducted for the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission when it was trying to lure a research campus to Montgomery County, Maryland.

Creighton, for instance, has seen an increase in the number of students from Phoenix who are enrolling at its main campus in Omaha, according to the university.

"There's a recognition of the Creighton brand," Hendrickson said.

But spinning off campuses can also be risky. Many U.S. universities that opened a spate of campuses abroad from 2000 to 2012 based partly on the promise of generous startup money from host countries in the Middle East and elsewhere have seen those schools struggle.

Eighty-four U.S. universities now operate campuses abroad, about a quarter of all international campuses globally, according to the Cross-Border Education Research Team, or C-BERT.

Of those, 16 are in China, where geopolitics has chilled relations, and 10 are in the Middle East, where enthusiasm has ebbed. Fifty-seven international campuses run by universities worldwide have closed, including 30 American-run satellite campuses since 2004 for reasons including enrollment falling below expectations and sponsors pulling out. Yale has announced that it will end its collaboration in Singapore with the National University of Singapore in 2025.

The opening and operation of international satellite campuses "has flattened out from the burst of activity we saw 15 years ago," said Kevin Kinser, department head of education policies studies at Pennsylvania State University and C-BERT's co-founder. "The momentum for creating overseas campuses is not really what it was."

Opening a new domestic campus may lack the complications of politics, currency exchanges and cultural divides, said Kinser. "But you still have some of the same challenges, which is that it's a lot easier to manage a program within the same geographic space than across the country."

For now, however, the trend continues. Hawai'i Pacific is next considering opening a campus in the Pacific Northwest, Shaw said. With undergraduate enrollments expected to be stagnant, a spokesman said, the university's growth strategy is focused on expanding its graduate programs at its main and other campuses.


Jon Marcus wrote this article for The Hechinger Report.

Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.


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Leaders of a teachers' union in Louisiana are voicing concerns about a package of bills they say would have the effect of dissolving labor unions in the state.

The list includes House Bill 571, which would prohibit public agencies from paying union workers for the time they do anything union-related, even if it's on paid leave.

If passed, said Roberto Furtado, a special-education teacher in the Jefferson Parish Public School System, the bills would end collective bargaining and prohibit payroll deductions for union dues. Furtado said all this would make it harder for new teachers to join the union, further silencing their voices.

"If they make it more difficult for the new teachers, young teachers, to get involved," he said, "then basically, it's a roadblock so they're probably more than likely going to just not do it."

House Bill 572 would prohibit public agencies from collective bargaining with unions, except for police and firefighters. Similar bills have been introduced in multiple states by conservative groups.

The teachers' union has posted petitions on its website for teachers to sign and send to their lawmakers.

Educators in Louisiana have said they're dealing with low pay, overcrowded classrooms and school safety issues. However, state lawmakers have advanced a budget proposal that would cut teacher pay, and the House Appropriations Committee forwarded a spending plan that reduces a $2,000 pay stipend teachers got this school year to $1,300 next year.

Furtado said the end result is forcing good teachers out of the profession.

"Teachers are an invaluable resource for our community, and so we need good, well-rounded educators that want to be there and continue their jobs to help these young men and women, because again, they are our future," he insisted. "That's kind of corny to say this, but yes, our children are our future. If you don't take care of them, where does our future lie?"

The legislative committee also allocated $25 million for a differential teacher compensation strategy for the second year in a row. The union opposed the strategy, because it said the raises wouldn't be permanent and could be taken away from year to year.


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By Lane Wendell Fischer for the Shasta Scout via The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for California News Service for the Public News Service/Daily Yonder Collaboration

Hiring and maintaining a qualified educator workforce is often a primary concern for rural schools across the country, requiring local education leaders to create innovative solutions.

The University of Wyoming’s College of Education has recently partnered with local community colleges across the state to repair a pipeline for future Career and Technical Education (CTE) teachers at high schools and community colleges. 

CTE programs offer students an array of skills-based learning opportunities for many high-demand industries ranging from construction, to nursing, to marketing.

For decades, Wyoming has relied on traditional methods to fill out its CTE teacher workforce. After completing a two-year associate’s degree at their community college, students could either enter the trades or take another two years of teacher training. 

“It was very much a fork in the road,” said Rob Hill, a CTE consultant for the University of Wyoming and president of SkillsUSA Wyoming. Hill became a Wyoming CTE teacher through this traditional path.

“You had to take life off and go to school,” Hill said. “That limited a lot of people, especially students with families, jobs, and homes.”

As it turned out, most students never completed the final two years of teacher training and just entered the trades after the first two years at their community college, Hill said in an interview with the Daily Yonder.

This outdated pipeline has contributed to a shortage of both CTE teachers and skilled workers in the state.

According to a 2023 report from the Wyoming Professional Teaching Standards Board, the median age of CTE teachers in Wyoming schools is 52, and national numbers are similar. Compare this to the average age of all teachers in the U.S., which is just over 42. 

On average, a state employee in Wyoming retires at 62. This means that in the next 7 to 10 years, Wyoming could lose close to half of its CTE workforce to retirement.

“We’ve seen a number of things that have impacted us and that rural part is very real,” Hill said.

In rural communities, a CTE program might only consist of one or two teachers. When that school loses a teacher, the whole program is at risk until a qualified replacement is found. 

During a recent tour of Wyoming’s school districts, Jenna Shim, PhD and interim dean of the College of Education, learned that some high school CTE programs are closing down because they couldn’t find replacements.

“One CTE teacher shared with me that he has a specialty in welding, but he has to teach culinary arts,” Shim told the Daily Yonder. “I could see welding and construction, but welding and culinary arts seem like a far stretch.”

And it can be difficult to attract new talent to small schools and communities. 

“We tend to do best with people that are invested in that community previously and become teachers, as opposed to bringing in teachers into small communities,” Hill said.

The CTE Domino Effect in Rural Communities

Adding to the difficulty of attracting new teachers is a domino effect caused by current teacher shortages, Shim and Hill said.

A shortage of educators leads to a shortage of high school CTE programs, which leads to a shortage of students pursuing CTE in the state, followed by a shortage of tradespeople in the state, and a shortage of essential services, which, in turn, leads to less attractive communities.

On top of educational advancement for students, repairing CTE teacher pipelines through state and local partnerships helps assemble the next generation of rural water experts, plumbers, electricians, technicians, mechanics, and more, Hill said.

“It has a trickle-down effect into the stability of the community,” Shim said.

And in rural communities, small fluctuations in population, programs, and services can be especially catastrophic — or especially beneficial. 

“It doesn’t seem like a big deal if you don’t have one teacher,” Hill said. “But that one teacher in a town of 2000 people that teaches welding, where you have a huge welding industry, that has an extremely large impact.”

The broken pipeline has also raised economic concerns. “Without a sufficient number of teachers, it’s hard to prepare a sufficient workforce,” Shim said.

Two key industries in Wyoming are energy and tourism. Both rely heavily on skilled workers. And both are susceptible to booms and busts that give local communities economic whiplash.

“Over the last decade especially, there’s been a real desire to diversify our workforce,” Hill said. “And that means a different generation of career and technical education, like manufacturing, cybersecurity, and data analysis.”

Repairing the Pipeline

The biggest problem in the previous CTE teacher pipeline was continuity, Hill said. The pathway to teacher certification in rural communities must be both attractive and achievable.

This spring, the College of Education piloted a new course that aims to do both by exposing community college students to CTE teaching before they complete their associate’s degree and decide between trades work or teaching. 

“Creating a more seamless pathway is a real goal here,” Hill explained. 

The bridge course will be offered each semester in partnership with all eight community colleges in the state and is inherently low stakes. The course credits can be applied toward an associate’s degree at the community college, toward their teaching degree at the university, or toward any other bachelor’s degree they pursue.

In the course, students get a taste of what a career in CTE teaching is like. Coordinated by Hill, the course is one dose online learning and one dose on-site learning. Hill leads the online classroom, where students learn about different national and statewide topics. “But students will learn about how it’s implemented locally,” Hill said. 

Each community college has a community college professional and a school district professional that serve as a mentor and safety net for local students, introducing them to CTE leaders at both levels. 

One area of misconception is how much CTE teachers are paid, Shim said.

“I think wages scare them most,” Hill said. “But in Wyoming, our hourly wage is higher than many of the trades folks. We have pensions. We have healthcare. It’s a lot more competitive than folks think it is.”

The organization of the course is a masterclass in rural ingenuity. By using technology, the course eliminates long distance travel to the university campus in Laramie on the southern border of the state. It allows students to remain in their local communities, while still being connected to the state’s CTE teacher network.

“We knew we had a statewide problem and we needed to create a statewide solution, or in this case, a local solution for a statewide problem,” Hill said. “This is about connecting people in Wyoming. Because we have these vast distances between us, we have to have a way to connect people.”

Twenty-two students are currently enrolled in the pilot course. Half of the inaugural cohort are community college students. The other half includes veterans, community college instructors, K-12 instructors, and paraprofessionals who are exploring their future career options.

The course has garnered support from state legislators, the university, the colleges, local high schools, local business, and from the students themselves. 

Each of the enrolled students is taking the course tuition-free, thanks to scholarships from local businesses and private donors.

“Word is getting out,” Shim said. “I think that’s a testimony for how important this work is.”

Strong CTE programs lead to strong communities, Shim and Hill said. A lot of high school CTE programs are embedded into community culture. Organizations like FFA provide opportunities for social gathering and community service, for example. 

“We’ve come up with a mutually beneficial solution and this takes a partnership and teamwork,” Hill said. “No significant advances take place without a group of us working together in a mutually beneficial system.”


Lane Wendell Fischer wrote this article for the Shasta Scout via The Daily Yonder.


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Texas Lieutenant Gov. Dan Patrick has released 57 "interim charges," the topics he wants Senate committees to study in preparation for the 89th legislative session next year.

Four charges are for the committee overseeing public education. They include improving reading and math readiness in grade school, and redesigning the state's standardized tests.

Eli Melandrez, government relations associate for the American Federation of Teachers-Texas, said educators are surprised the list does not include pay increases for teachers or controversial school vouchers, which use public money to pay for private schooling.

"It's interesting to see both of those key issues absent from the interim charges," Melandrez observed. "Across the state we've seen school closures; we've seen teachers being let go. We've seen a greater percentage of our teacher workforce as uncertified educators."

Two unsuccessful special sessions were held in the past few months, in an attempt to pass a school voucher proposal. Other charges for public schools include examining how school districts used COVID-19 funding, and monitoring the implementation of bills passed in the last session.

Patrick also directed the Higher Education Committee to analyze faculty senates, monitor bans on DEI policies at colleges and universities and revise policies for faculty tenure.

Melandrez noted their union is now affiliated with the American Association of University Professors and members are concerned the lieutenant governor is inserting his own political views into the education system.

"That's worrisome for us," Melandrez emphasized. "In public education and higher education, we are seeing a concerted effort to minimize educator voices."

Patrick also wants senators to review university antisemitism policies and protecting the First Amendment rights of faculty, staff and students. The next legislative session convenes Jan. 14, 2025.