The Community College Research Center completed a project, funded by the Association for Institutional Research (AIR) and National Postsecondary Education Cooperative (NPEC), to research pathways to success for underserved community college students. CCRC researchers tracked the experience and outcomes in community colleges of low-income students, students of color, students who enroll in college at an older age, and those who attend part-time. This was accomplished through analysis of longitudinal student record data provided by the community college systems in Florida and Washington State. The goal was to inform community college practice and public policy, in these and other states, in ways that improve degree and labor market outcomes for such students. These students, as numerous studies show, represent substantial proportions of community college enrollments, yet complete postsecondary degrees at lower rates on average than do other students.

The datasets provided by Florida and Washington State contained extensive information on cohorts of first-time college students enrolled in a community or technical college in each state, including demographics, full transcripts over three- to six-year timeframes, and community college degree outcomes. The Florida dataset included information on transfer to baccalaureate institutions and baccalaureate completion. The Washington State dataset included data from the state’s Unemployment Insurance wage records on employment status and quarterly earnings one year before, during, and for five years after initial enrollment in one of the state’s community or technical colleges. CCRC incorporated, into both datasets, information from the IPEDS Institutional Survey on the overall student body characteristics, size, location, and finances of the community or technical colleges in the two samples.  This allowed us to account for the impact of institutional characteristics on student attainment.  

CCRC is used these datasets to address the following research questions:

1)

What are the critical filter points at which community college students – particularly those who are low-income, persons of color, older or part-time – tend to flounder or drop out?

2)

What course-taking patterns or “pathways” are associated with higher rates of degree completion among such underserved community college students?  

3)

What institutional characteristics, policies and practices (to the extent the latter are measured in the data), are associated with higher rates of degree completion among underserved community college students?

4)

How does employment affect college attendance patterns and outcomes for low-income students, older students, and those who enroll part-time?  

5)

What are the labor market outcomes of a community college education for different groups of underserved students, and what pathways lead most readily to family-supporting jobs for these students?

CCRC has conducted a series of studies over the past several years on educational and economic attainment by community college students, with a particular focus on those in occupational education programs and those who face barriers to success in college. These studies used the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) datasets from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) and Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study 1996-2001 (BPS:96/01), each of which has certain limitations for answering the above questions. Using the longitudinal student record data from the partner states has enabled us to address the questions above in ways that have not been possible using data from the NCES surveys.

The partner states use the findings from CCRC’s analysis to stimulate debate and experimentation among community college professionals in their respective systems on practices effective in serving disadvantaged students. Both states also use the results and input from their colleges to identify ways that state policy can be changed to facilitate efforts to bridge gaps in the performance of underserved students and thereby create educational “pathways” to success for these students. A key objective of this project was to model an analytical process that states can follow in using data collected at the state level to inform changes in policy and practice that lead to improved student success.