College students arrive on campus ready to learn, but they often carry far more than a backpack. Many are balancing multiple jobs, navigating housing instability, experiencing food insecurity, and managing mental health challenges. These realities can create significant barriers to college completion, yet traditional academic advising and financial aid systems were not designed to address these challenges.

Recognizing the deep connection between basic needs and academic outcomes, community colleges in New Jersey are embracing a different approach—one that sees holistic student supports as integral to student success.

Integrating Holistic Supports Into Student Success Strategies

The New Jersey Council of County Colleges (NJCCC) built its Community to Opportunity initiative on a simple but powerful premise: Meeting students’ basic needs is not an add-on to a student success strategy; it is the strategy.

The initiative sought to address barriers college students were facing inside and outside the classroom by strengthening holistic, student-centered support systems on campus. NJCCC convened six community colleges to engage in this work: Camden County College, Hudson County Community College, Essex County College, Ocean County College, Sussex County Community College, and Rowan College at Burlington County. Together, the colleges focused on creating systemic solutions, building community partnerships, and increasing institutional capacity to recognize and respond to student needs. Education Northwest provided technical assistance, helping the six colleges to develop action plans, identify service gaps, and strengthen existing campus supports.

Meeting students’ basic needs is not an add-on to a student success strategy; it is the strategy.

By helping colleges identify and address barriers, the initiative has supported the development of campus communities where students can access the resources, relationships, and supports they need to persist, thrive, and complete their credentials.

Community of Practice Fuels Innovation and Student Success

The Community to Opportunity initiative was intentionally designed as a collaborative learning network rather than a competitive grant program. Instead of competing for resources, the six colleges exchanged strategies, solved challenges collectively, and built on one another’s successes. This community of practice model generated three key outcomes that would have been unlikely to emerge under a traditional competitive grant approach.

Accelerated adoption

• What started with six community colleges quickly shifted practice across New Jersey’s remaining 12 community colleges as participants presented at statewide convenings and shared strategies informally.

Surfaced place-based variation

• Each college’s student population has distinct needs shaped by county demographics and community resources. The shared structure allowed colleges to adapt rather than simply replicate one another’s efforts.

Developed system-level leadership

• Staff members who initially participated as campus practitioners emerged as leaders, championing holistic student support efforts within NJCCC and across the state's community college system.

From Evidence to Practice: Emerging Strategies of Holistic Student Supports

Education Northwest interviewed all six colleges to explore implementation strategies, identify promising practices, and understand how the Community to Opportunity initiative has supported their efforts to better meet student needs. The team coded interview findings against our Basic Needs Services Implementation Rubric, which organizes evidence-based practices across four goals:

Goal 1

Comprehensive services with navigable systems

Goal 2

Student-centered approaches that reduce stigma

Goal 3

Targeted case management

Goal 4

Data collection and use

Four common lessons emerged across all the colleges:

Dedicated staff drives success

• Community colleges with the strongest basic needs systems had at least one staff member focused primarily on coordinating these efforts.

Visible, accessible, and stigma-free supports matter

• Community colleges made the greatest progress by expanding awareness of services and embedding student voice into outreach and program design.

Community partnerships are evolving

• Colleges have built strong partnerships to connect students with services, but many are still developing the infrastructure to track outcomes, understand who benefits, and identify what works.

Coordinated, data-informed support is the next frontier

• Many of the colleges strengthened their case management, but sustained infrastructure and shared systems remain essential.

The Next Step: Scaling and Investing in What Works for Students

The lessons learned from the Community to Opportunity initiative have broader implications than the six participating colleges. These findings are critical for the whole state: New Jersey is currently working toward a statewide goal that 75 percent of adults earn a postsecondary credential or degree by 2040. Advancing the following policy priorities will enable other colleges to replicate the success achieved by the initial participants and accelerate progress toward New Jersey’s 2040 postsecondary attainment goal.

Make the Hunger-Free Campus grant permanent and grow the funding pool.

• A permanent, growing state appropriation available to all 18 community colleges would provide the stable funding needed to sustain long-term culture change and strengthen basic needs support.

Create a dedicated state funding stream for basic needs coordination positions.

• Across the six colleges, basic needs work was often led by a single staff member in a dual role. This highlights the need for dedicated, state-funded coordinator positions embedded in college operating budgets.

Invest in a shared data infrastructure across New Jersey community colleges.

• The state, in partnership with NJCCC, should invest in a shared screening and data infrastructure that helps community colleges identify student needs early and track outcomes across institutions using deidentified data.

Elevate holistic student support in the 2040 attainment goal framework.

• The Office of the Secretary of Higher Education should recognize holistic student support as a core student success strategy by incorporating it into accountability measures and creating opportunities for policymakers to engage directly with colleges implementing this work.

Learn More About the Initiative

Education Northwest developed an executive summary and three case briefs to highlight the strategies colleges used to strengthen holistic student supports. These resources showcase how colleges are building systems that address students’ basic needs, creating pathways for more students to achieve their educational and career goals.

Da'Shon Carr is a senior researcher who uses culturally responsive methods to understand how institutions and organizations can support communities along educational pathways that improve their economic mobility. Much of her work at Education Northwest focuses on postsecondary access and success, including initiatives to address basic needs insecurity.

Leanne Davis is a managing researcher focused on postsecondary access and success. She works at the intersection of research, policy, and practice, with an emphasis on addressing issues of access and equity during transitions in the educational pipeline and exploring how policies and practices help or hinder a student’s ability to complete a postsecondary credential.

Jacob Farbman is the executive director of economic mobility for the New Jersey Council of County Colleges, the statewide nonprofit enshrined in state law that strengthens and supports New Jersey’s 18 community colleges.