ARCC Blog
Are Labor Market Opportunities Diverting Potential Community College Students? Lessons From Los Angeles County
What is driving the recent decline in community college enrollment? Many explanations have been posited, from improving job opportunities, to a decreasing payoff from getting a degree, to a shrinking working-age population. To gain clarity, researchers took a deep dive into the labor market in Los Angeles County to explore these trends on a local level.
Examining Losses and Recoveries in Community College Enrollment: Lessons From the Los Angeles Community College District
A clear understanding of community college enrollment losses is critical for driving institutional responses. What, then, is causing the enrollment decline—and will it continue? This blog post looks to Los Angeles Community College District's experiences for answers.
Qualifying for Public Food Benefits Is More Complicated for College Students. The EATS Act Would Make It Easier.
California has put significant effort into connecting food-insecure college students to CalFresh (known nationally as SNAP) benefits. To support these efforts, the California Policy Lab partnered with state agencies and higher education systems to generate the first estimates of CalFresh participation and eligibility rates for California students.
Podcast: How Workforce Education at Community Colleges Can Contribute to Pandemic Recovery
In this podcast, WestEd's Jenna Terrell and CCRC's Maria Cormier discuss how the community colleges they are studying are developing programs and supports to serve their workforce students as they emerge from the COVID pandemic.
Video: ARCC Network Webinar Explores Student and Faculty Success in Distance Education
In May, researchers from the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University and the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California hosted a webinar sharing findings from an ongoing study being conducted in the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD).Â
Early Alerts: How Two California Colleges Are Using Relief Funds to Keep Students Enrolled
Copper Mountain College and Cabrillo College in California are using pandemic relief funding to promote student success through early alert systems, which connects students to campus counselors. Whereas similar systems in the past were often under resourced, relief funding has given these colleges the capacity to support larger numbers of students with a broader set of resources.
Zero Textbook Cost: In California, a Community College President Leverages Short-Term Funds for Long-Term Impact
This blog is the third in a series on the Wheelhouse Research Collaboration Council and focuses on how Higher Education Emergency Relief funding inspired efforts at Cosumnes River College to permanently eliminate textbook costs.
How Can States Better Align Statewide Economic and Workforce Programs to Boost Their Impact? Lessons From Virginia
Researchers at CCRC are examining two workforce programs in Virginia to better understand how well these state-funded economic development investments leverage each other and how they can generate more equitable college attainment and labor market outcomes for individuals and communities.
Focusing on Wins: California Community College Leaders Reflect on Pandemic-Era Innovations
Wheelhouse convened members of its Research Collaboration Council to discuss improving student and staff engagement on campus post-pandemic. This blog post highlights actions taken by three institutions.
Wheelhouse Research Collaboration Council: Shaping Our Understanding of Pandemic Recovery
To inform their research on effective educational strategies during and after the pandemic, Wheelhouse at the University of California Davis brought together a council of community college leaders. This blog post explores how the research team is working with the Research Collaboration Council to establish a forward-looking community of practice.
