This N.C. College Leader Thinks Two-Year Schools Can Save the Middle Class

To hear Monty Sullivan talk about community colleges is like hearing a preacher share the gospel, a salesman make a pitch, or a politician rally his supporters. 

To be clear, Sullivan is a talker; he stretched a recent interview with The Assembly 30 minutes beyond the 60 that his office scheduled. But it’s how he speaks that conveys his passion for two-year schools, where he has worked for more than 30 years. He speaks urgently about the difference an education can make in students’ lives and in their communities. 

Above all, Sullivan is emphatic that community colleges are the key to strengthening the U.S. economy and fostering a healthy democracy.

“Social upheaval is going to happen when you don’t have a middle class. That’s what we’re feeling right now,” he said. “And the role of the American community college is to create and sustain the American middle class.”

That’s the mindset Sullivan brings to his role as president of the North Carolina Community College System, which he began last month. 

He enters the job as the system, which comprises 58 community colleges and enrolled nearly 663,000 students last year, has a renewed focus on developing the state’s workforce. Lawmakers this summer provided the system with $57.5 million to implement Propel NC, a first-of-its-kind funding model that will boost programs meant to train students for in-demand jobs. Some schools are also seeking to qualify short-term training programs for federal financial aid through the Workforce Pell Grant, which helps low-income students pay for college.

The system, which typically enjoys bipartisan support, has also come under legislative scrutiny in recent years. Three years ago, the General Assembly seized more authority over appointments to the state board overseeing two-year schools and required new system presidents to undergo confirmation. (Sullivan, the first president subject to the change, is serving in an acting capacity until lawmakers consider his nomination this fall.)

This summer, lawmakers targeted diversity, equity, and inclusion at the two-year schools, cutting funding for a program that helped underrepresented students graduate and banning other DEI programming.

It’s familiar territory for Sullivan, who led the Louisiana Community & Technical Colleges System for 12 years before retiring from the role in January. In 2023, as Louisiana lawmakers sought to require community colleges to report on their DEI programming and how much money they spent on it, Sullivan testified publicly that the proposed resolution was “a racist instrument.” 

“Diversity, equity, and inclusion is a fact of life,” he said at the time. Later, after the legislature passed the measure, most Louisiana community colleges reported they spent nothing on DEI. 

Sullivan said last year the focus on the hot-button issue was “nothing more than a firestorm.” He offered a similar assessment to The Assembly, saying much of the conversation in Louisiana had been driven by national scrutiny of DEI efforts and race-conscious admissions at selective universities. He said that including community colleges, which generally accept anyone who seeks to enroll, left out important context. 

“The real issue, from my point of view, is the notion that we are being asked to diversify the workforce,” he said. “So, when those companies are asking for a diverse workforce, we’re trying to be responsive to it.”

Sullivan told The Assembly he has no issue with the North Carolina DEI ban, though. He said there is a “clear difference” between the states’ policies but did not elaborate. He praised the North Carolina community college board for enacting the corresponding policy required under the new law in July, noting he believes the system has a responsibility to “implement with fidelity” any actions the legislature requires. 

“What is taking place here is exactly what should be taking place,” he said. 

The Assembly reached out to multiple state legislators focused on higher education for this story, but none responded. Sullivan urged lawmakers and the public to consider his full record: “If that example is the example that people want to think of me within, I encourage them to get to know me a little better.”

Sullivan acknowledged that “we are in an environment where higher education is more politicized.” But he welcomes public interest in the sector and oversight from lawmakers, he said, because he believes most people want their local colleges to succeed.

“There’s not a person in that General Assembly that doesn’t want to see their constituents do well,” he said. “There’s not a person in this state that doesn’t want to see their family do well.”

When the community college system launched its search for a new president, the profile focused almost exclusively on the outsized role that two-year schools play in the state’s economy—from training students for jobs, to employing staff, to partnering with industries to meet workforce needs—and how a new leader should build on the momentum. 

“This role carries a clear mandate: accelerate the System’s impact on workforce and economic growth,” the profile read. 

Sullivan said he is particularly interested in improving North Carolina’s labor participation rate, or the proportion of adults who are employed or looking for work. 

Last month, the state’s rate reached its lowest level since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, 57.8%, and was below the national rate of 61.6%. On the same day he spoke with The Assembly, Sullivan said he’d raised the issue with N.C. Secretary of Commerce Lee Lilley. (The Federal Reserve of St. Louis, which publishes research and commentary on the data, says the national decline is due to a change the Bureau of Labor Statistics made to population data earlier this year, a drop in workers ages 25 to 54, and a steadily aging population.)

The decline is troubling, Sullivan said, especially when coupled with the shrinking of the middle class. That’s been a priority for him for more than a decade as president of Rebuilding America’s Middle Class, a coalition of community colleges that advocates for policies to help students get an education and improve their socioeconomic status. 

“I’m concerned about the population of people who are shut out of the economy. It’s a big number, and it’s a number that I think—because of prosperity for so many, particularly in the central piedmont—we don’t see,” Sullivan said. “It’s our job to see them. It’s our job to create opportunities so that those folks have that next leg up.”

Sullivan stressed that the education and training community colleges provide can lead to better lives for students, regardless of where they live or grow up. 

The State Board of Community Colleges formed a “transformation committee” last month that will, in part, oversee initiatives to modernize and upgrade technology across the system. Sullivan said the effort is as much about improving technical infrastructure as it is about setting students up for success by making it easier to find the right programs and enroll. 

“It shouldn’t be such that you have greater opportunity in one ZIP code than you do in another, or that your experience in onboarding is better in one ZIP code than it is in another,” Sullivan said. “That should be something that we hold up as opportunity for improved processes.”

Amanda Lee, president of Bladen Community College, helped advise the search for a new system president. She said Sullivan’s experience working with lawmakers, coupled with his experience as a college administrator, boosted his candidacy.

As vice chancellor in the Virginia Community College System before working in Louisiana, he helped develop a grant program for students transferring from the state’s two-year schools to a four-year university. And in Louisiana, he oversaw the creation of a program that covers the full cost of tuition and fees for adults seeking an associate’s degree or short-term credential to work in a high-demand, high-wage job in the state. At the federal level, he testified to Congress in support of the Workforce Pell Grant. 

“I think he truly understands the dynamics and the challenges that the politicians are facing because they don’t have an easy job, either,” Lee said.

Local college presidents previously told The Assembly they crave stability after a period of considerable turnover in the system’s top job; Sullivan is the fifth system president to hold the job in the past 11 years, not including acting or interim leaders who served for terms between five to 10 months. 

“The system leadership is very important to us at each campus, whether you’re as big as we are or a smaller campus,” said Scott Ralls, the president of Wake Technical Community College who previously led the system from 2008-2015. “And having as much transition as we’ve had over the last decade has not helped any of us in the colleges.”

Sullivan said, “Stability is my goal.” But, in his sermon-esque style, it’s clear he has a loftier vision for the system under his tenure.

“We can change this state—I believe we can change this nation—through the American community college,” Sullivan said. “And there’s no question in my mind that North Carolina is the place that it begins.”