How to Measure Community College Effectiveness in Serving Transfer Students
This guide provides instructions for community colleges that want to use National Student Clearinghouse data to assess their own effectiveness and that of particular transfer partnerships in helping students to transfer and complete bachelor’s degrees.
Reforming the American Community College: Promising Changes and Their Challenges
This paper discusses the organization, roles, and contributions of community colleges, and it analyzes reforms that have been proposed and enacted to meet ongoing challenges.
Stackable Credentials: Do They Have Labor Market Value?
Using national, survey, and college-system-level datasets, this paper estimates the association between stackable credentials and earnings, finding weakly positive and inconsistent gains from these award combinations.
Takes Two to Tango: Essential Practices of Highly Effective Transfer Partnerships
This journal article offers a set of essential transfer practices culled from national fieldwork to two- and four-year institutional transfer partnerships identified using NSC data as highly effective in supporting transfer student success.
Building Transfer Student Success at Macomb Community College: A Report on Transfer and Degree Completion
Using student data, this report provides information on the outcomes of students who attended Macomb Community College and then transferred to one of 14 four-year destination colleges.
Thinking “Beyond the Box”: The Use of Criminal Records in College Admissions
In this Brookings report, the author examines the policy landscape and reviews available evidence to assess the potential benefits and costs of thinking beyond the box in college admissions. The author then offers six key findings that have emerged from this review.
What Happens to Students Who Take Community College "Dual Enrollment" Courses in High School?
This report uses student enrollment and degree records from the National Student Clearinghouse to examine who enrolls in community college dual enrollment courses and what happens to them after high school.
Simplifying and Modernizing Pell Grants to Maximize Efficiency and Impact
With the goal of informing federal higher education policy decisions, this brief for the Urban Institute suggests federal student aid reform that simplifies the eligibility and application process.
Building Blocks: Laying the Groundwork for Guided Pathways Reform in Ohio
This report describes how Ohio’s two-year colleges are approaching guided pathways reforms, focusing on innovations they have implemented in recent years that can serve as building blocks as they seek to transform their policies, practices, and culture following the guided pathways model.
Redesigning Advising and Student Support: Tools for Practitioners
This set of tools aims to help community colleges and broad-access four-year colleges assess their work on technology-mediated advising and student support, sometimes referred to as Integrated Planning and Advising for Student Success (iPASS).
College Placement Strategies: Evolving Considerations and Practices
This CAPR working paper provides an overview of the history of college placement testing, with a focus on nonselective colleges. The authors discuss the limitations of placement tests, the consequences of placement errors, and the movement toward changing systems of placement; a typology of approaches to assessment and placement is also described.
From “Additive” to “Integrative”: Experiences of Faculty Teaching Developmental Integrated Reading and Writing Courses
Using interview, focus group, and case study data, this paper documents the perceptions and experiences of faculty members in the midst of statewide reform efforts in Virginia and North Carolina to integrate developmental reading and writing courses.
Understanding American Honors: Student Selection, Key Program Components, and Stakeholder Impressions
Based on a mixed-methods study at six colleges, this brief examines the domestic population served by American Honors; its key programmatic features; and community college student, faculty, and staff perspectives on the program.
Colleges’ Experiences Integrating Support Services for Military Veterans
This review draws from the experiences of colleges awarded the Kisco Foundation’s Kohlberg Prize to highlight the practical and philosophical challenges involved in creating integrated services for student veterans.
"I Came in Unsure of Everything": Community College Students' Shifts in Confidence
Using interview data from students at three community colleges, this paper examines shifts in confidence that students experience early in their college careers.
Leadership for Transformative Change: Lessons From Technology-Mediated Reform in Broad-Access Colleges
This study explores the influence of different types of leadership approaches on the implementation of a technology-mediated advising reform at six colleges, and assesses which types of leadership are associated with transformative organizational change.
Federal Work-Study: Past Its Prime, or Ripe for Renewal?
This Brookings report discusses what role the Federal Work-Study program might have in a modern “college completion and career readiness” agenda.
What Do Students Think of Guided Pathways?
Using interview data from first-year students at City Colleges of Chicago (CCC), this brief describes students’ reactions to important components of CCC’s recent guided pathways reform efforts.
Is It Really Cheaper to Start at a Community College? The Consequences of Inefficient Transfer for Community College Students Seeking Bachelor’s Degrees
Using data from two state systems, this paper examines whether it is more efficient for bachelor’s degree seekers to start at a two-year college.
The Need for Comprehensive Reform: From Access to Completion
This chapter argues that substantially increasing college completion rates requires comprehensive institutional reform with a focus on measurable student success, an intentional and cohesive package of programmatic components, and a culture of evidence.