CCRC in the News

Census survey data reveals that a significant number of American students in every region of the United States changed their postsecondary plans as a result of the pandemic. CCRC Director Thomas Brock, who analyzed similar Census data last year, told Education Week that, although he's less optimistic than he was before the onset of the Delta variant, he still believes the community college sector's worst pandemic days have passed.

Racial inequities plague upward transfer enrollment, according to a new report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center that also found that colleges and universities lost nearly 200,000 transfer students from July 2020 to June 2021. CCRC Senior Research Associate John Fink told Inside Higher Ed that the upward transfer rate, which remained relatively steady during the last year, is still too low.  

This package of stories from Crain's Detroit Business describes how colleges in southeast Michigan are changing their approaches to developmental education to improve student outcomes. In an op-ed, CCRC Senior Research Scholar Nikki Edgecombe argued that institutions must update their understanding of "college readiness" and expand immediate access to college-level mathematics and English courses. Meanwhile, CCRC Affiliate James Jacobs wrote that developmental education reform will improve graduation rates.

Community college students often transfer with a significant number of excess credits. CCRC Director Thomas Brock told Diverse: Issues in Higher Education that one of the benefits of earning a baccalaureate degree from a community college is that students can avoid retaking classes after transferring to a four-year institution.  

In this Education Dive op-ed, the Aspen Institute's Gelsey Mehl cites CCRC research on improving transfer student outcomes to argue that free community college programs are most effective when educators and lawmakers ensure students can transfer their free credits to earn a bachelor's degree. Mehl is a coauthor of The Dual Enrollment Playbook, a 2020 joint publication between CCRC and the Aspen Institute. 

Many aspiring barbers and cosmetologists in Tennessee struggle under the weight of student loan debt accumulated during their training. CCRC Senior Research Scholar Judith Scott-Clayton told Commercial Appeal that policy proposals to forgive even modest amounts of student debt would go a long way because many people who fall behind on their loan payments owe less than $10,000. 

This Inside Higher Ed op-ed argues that the transfer system is fundamentally flawed and offers a set of recommendations for "resetting" transfer to meet the needs of today’s learners. CCRC Senior Research Associate John Fink is a member of the Tackling Transfer Policy Advisory Board, which wrote the essay. 

This EdScoop story describes CCRC and SRI's newly launched IES-funded research center, which aims to address inequities in online learning in college. Government Technology, University Business,  and The Town-Crier also covered the center's announcement. EdSource mentioned it in a story about California Gov. Gavin Newsom's continued support of Calbright, the state's fully online community college. 

Connecticut community colleges are using federal funding to expand guided pathways and hire 174 academic advisors in an effort to bring students back to campus following pandemic-related enrollment drops. CCRC Senior Research Scholar Davis Jenkins told The Connecticut Examiner that hiring counselors won't be enough to spur enrollment—they need to be connected to specific programs.

This Inside Higher Ed story describes a new CAPR working paper that found an alternative placement system that incorporates multiple measures of assessment was more predictive of a student's future performance than placement tests alone.