The Year in Review: A Look Back at CCRC in 2024

At the end of each year, we like to take time to reflect on the work we have done and consider the opportunities that lie ahead to support community colleges and their students. From publishing first-of-their-kind reports to introducing a project on community colleges’ role in building a sustainable future, CCRC’s work this year highlighted the versatility of community colleges and their unique role in the world of higher education.

Before we greet the new year, here are a few CCRC milestones from 2024.

What Happens to Dual Enrollment Students After High School?

In October, CCRC released a national and state-by-state report on what happens to dual enrollment students when they move on to college. It tracks dual enrollment students for four years after they graduate from high school to see how many enroll in college and complete certificates, associate degrees, and bachelor’s degrees and shares key takeaways for college leaders.

The team used data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center for the analysis and to create an accompanying dashboard showing data (that can be disaggregated by state and student characteristics) on dual enrollment student outcomes after graduation. These findings update and expand on an earlier CCRC report that looked at how dual enrollment students at community colleges fared when they graduated.

This report is the first to look at college outcomes for all dual enrollment students and to break down the results by race, income, and gender nationally and for each state. Several news outlets, including Education Week, the Texas Tribune, and Forbes, covered its release.

CAPR Celebrates 10 Years

This year marked the 10-year anniversary of the Center for the Analysis of Postsecondary Readiness (CAPR). Founded in 2014 as a partnership between CCRC and the social policy research organization MDRC, CAPR works with colleges and researchers around the country to build knowledge that brings developmental education into the 21st century and puts more students on the road to graduation. This year, CAPR, which will run through the end of 2025, released new work on implementing corequisite remediation in City University of New York colleges and wrapped up research on implementing multiple measures assessment in Texas and Arkansas.

A Look at Guided Pathways Reforms

Capping more than a decade of research on guided pathways, a brief published in March summarized findings from two major evaluations involving 70 institutions. The studies examined the scale at which colleges have implemented guided pathways reforms and the association between guided pathways practices and student outcomes. They found that whole-college reform based on the guided pathways model is feasible but takes at least five years to accomplish. They also found a positive relationship between the adoption of guided pathways practices and measures of student momentum among colleges that made the most progress in reform.

Stay tuned for a new book set to be released in August 2025 that provides more insights into guided pathways implementation since CCRC’s 2015 book Redesigning America's Community Colleges: A Clearer Path to Student Success.

The ARCC Network: Pandemic Relief Funding and Spending

Co-led by CCRC, the Accelerating Recovery in Community Colleges (ARCC) Network brings together six research teams from across the country to identify strategies community colleges can use to bring back and support students after COVID. Among several pieces released this year, CCRC researchers contributed two pieces on federal Higher Education Emergency Relief (HEER) funding. The first, accompanied by a data dashboard, assessed the importance of HEER funding for the financial solvency of community colleges during the pandemic. The second, which looked at how colleges spent federal relief aid, found that HEER funding met critical student and institutional needs during the pandemic, especially supporting technology hardware, high-speed internet, and housing assistance.

Tracking Transfer Outcomes

CCRC, working with the Aspen Institute and the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, released two reports in February on the performance of two- and four-year institutions in enabling students to transfer and obtain bachelor’s degrees. The groundbreaking study examined state-by-state transfer rates and outcomes by student subgroups, finding that low-income, older, Black, and Hispanic students transfer and complete bachelor’s degrees at lower rates than community college students overall. A data dashboard showing state-by-state findings accompanies the reports, which serve as a call to action for higher education leaders to improve inefficient transfer pathways. The reports were met with significant coverage from news outlets, including CNBC, Forbes, and Inside Higher Ed.

How Can Community Colleges Address Climate Change?

CCRC researchers embarked on a project to highlight and support community college efforts in developing a workforce to staff the transition to a more sustainable economy. The project launched in September and will continue through December 2025.

The team gathered community college and climate leaders at an April convening with the goal of building a research agenda. The researchers took what they learned from the convening and shared five insights about the role community colleges can play in addressing climate change in a Call to Action. Finally, the team hosted a Climate Week NYC event in September to engage the community in a discussion on how to support the work underway and to galvanize further efforts to prepare workers for the green economy.

CCRC Congratulates Four Graduating Staff Members

Four staff members earned their graduate degrees from Teachers College in 2024:

1. Jenivee Gastelum earned her master’s in sociology and education.
2. Joe Hille was awarded his master’s in art and art education.
3. Farzana Matin graduated with her master’s in clinical psychology.
4. Hanna Nichols earned her master’s in education policy.

All four staff members have moved on to new positions in New York City and beyond. We’re rooting for all of them back at CCRC!

Six Summer Interns Join CCRC

Five students from the City University of New York and one from Bates College spent their summers learning about higher education research, policy, and communications alongside CCRC researchers and communications staff. They supported projects on online education, assessment and placement reform, first-generation student support networks, shrinking equity gaps, and students’ program choices. Read about how they connected to CCRC’s work here.

CCRC Welcomes Fourth Cohort of PEAR Fellows

In August, we welcomed two new PEAR fellows, Daniel March and Bianca Onwukwe. March, a PhD student in the Measurement and Evaluation program at Teachers College, participates in a CCRC project on equitable practices in dual enrollment. Onwukwe is a PhD candidate in the Economics and Education program and has joined a research team examining the effects of the Federal Work-Study program.

On behalf of all of us at CCRC, we wish you a safe and happy holiday season and look forward to connecting with you in the new year!