With liberal arts colleges and universities reporting losses in student enrollment and retention, and our nation's workforce growing older and more diverse, colleges and universities are being forced to rethink their approach to educating and engaging students. Regis is no exception and has been making efforts to grow its enrollment by expanding preprofessional programs and graduate programs in high-demand areas such as nursing, biomedical sciences, health administration and regulatory and clinical research. Seeing collaboration as key to success in educating and engaging students and forging relationships with employers who will hire their graduates, Regis recently announced that their first satellite location, Regis North, is now in partnership with Northern Essex Community College (NECC) in downtown Lawrence, an ethnically diverse, multicultural "Gateway City" 30 miles north of Boston. With more than 1,800 students enrolled in one of NECC's 25 healthcare programs, NECC students will be able to seamlessly transition into Regis North's bachelor's degree completion programs in nursing, public health and other health sciences. Regis North comes at a time when the healthcare industry confronts dual challenges: workforce shortages in a number of occupations and a more complex healthcare system that is requiring greater skill levels. Advanced degrees are increasingly sought after by employers in the healthcare industry. The Institute of Medicine has called for 80% of the nursing workforce to have a bachelor's degree by 2020. Leading nursing and public health professional organizations such as the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, have called for increasing diversity in the nursing and public workforce to better reflect changing population demographics of the country. As a nation, we must think creatively in finding new ways to achieve that goal. Programs like Regis North are designed to target diverse populations, including educated adult learners who may have been trained as nurses in their own country, but lack the necessary credentials to practice nursing in the U.S. These students are also likely to face barriers, such as pressing, multiple, family and financial obligations that prevent them from completing their bachelor's degree and advancing their careers in healthcare. A concerted choice is being made to invest and expand in communities such as Lawrence, where both population and need present significant opportunities for Regis and local residents. By going to where more students live and work, models like Regis North have the potential to be game-changers in educating the next generation and catalyzing educational and economic opportunities.