Policy Director

Organizational Overview

The barriers to college completion are complex and intertwined. No one educator, department, institution, or state can solve them. Without a simultaneous and intersectional approach, those barriers will continue to rob all of us—educators, advocates, and students alike—of the life-changing benefits of a complete college journey.

Complete College America (CCA) builds movements for scaled change and transforms institutions. Since its founding in 2009, CCA has paired bold, innovative thinking with practical actions that colleges and policymakers can implement across every level of higher education. CCA’s work centers on researching and testing education reforms, providing coaching and support, and advocating for change. Across these areas, CCA uses data toidentifybarriers and design successful strategies;

aligns policy, perspective, andpracticeso complexsystemsoperateeffectively; connects experts to amplify their insights; and builds shared accountability. The organization is at the center of the broad CCA Alliance, which is driving change that works for every leader, every campus, and every system.

Complete College America’s headquarters is in Indianapolis, Indiana. The selected candidate’s preferred remote work location is Washington, DC. Qualified candidates with other remote work locations will be considered; periodic travel is required for this role.

Reporting to the Vice President for Development and External Affairs, the Policy Director will develop and promote state and federal public policy that assists students in graduating on time from two-year and four-year colleges, and that closes institutional performance gaps by race/ethnicity, generation status, gender, and household income background. The candidate will demonstrate expertise in policy levers at the institutional, state, and federal levels and will be responsible for the direction of public policy initiatives.

The selected Policy Director will lead the implementation of a newly developed state and federal public policy agenda and design and implement policy tracking processes to highlight the extent to which CCA student success reforms take hold per-college/-system/-state, as well as nationally. Excellent written and oral communication skills are paramount for this role, as the selected candidate must be able to translate best practices and quantitative evidence into compelling, effective public policy proposals that advance state and federal college attainment efforts.

The Policy Director will also be responsible for leading and mentoring policy leaders across our Alliance, ensuring that our partners execute policy strategy effectively and collaboratively.

To succeed in this position, an individual must possess strong leadership and project management skills, be able to prioritize and balance tasks, and employ a team-based approach to executing strategy. The ideal candidate will have a proven record of driving public policy change and fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation within their team.

• Lead the successful implementation of advocacy strategies to advance CCA’s public policy agenda and year-by-year priorities, including the acquisition of new revenue through contracts, grants, appropriations, revenue sharing agreements, or other means.
• Lead research, analysis, and evaluation of existing institutional, state, accreditor, and federal public policies applicable to CCA reform efforts, with a focus on improving student success and closing institutional performance gaps in postsecondary attainment.
• Oversee and manage processes for developing, implementing, and evaluating public policy initiatives, including coordinating the creation of reports, project management requirements, and contributing to seminal CCA publications.
• Collaborate with Complete College America Alliance Policy Leads to build buy-in and/or co-author public policy recommendations that align with state and/or national trends and address individual Alliance member's specific political contexts.
• Design and establish knowledge management processes for tracking and reporting on public policy developments…