Publications

Drawing on interviews with students, faculty, and staff at three community colleges, this paper aims to clarify the role of community college student and the behaviors that must be enacted for students to succeed.

This paper estimates technical efficiency scores across the community college sector; it finds that the colleges have become more efficient over time but finds no evidence of economies of scale.

This article discusses community college students’ experiences with online and face-to-face learning and implications for community colleges.

This journal article examines the impact of acceleration on access, performance, credit accumulation, and degree attainment at CUNY.

This practitioner packet provides tools to help community college administrators effectively implement reforms to developmental education at their colleges.

This issue of Inside Out identifies and explores the implications of three faculty orientations toward reform that consistently manifest when an innovation is introduced: ready to act, ambivalent, and reluctant to change.

This brief summarizes the research on the impacts of performance funding and suggests ways policymakers implementing performance funding programs can address obstacles and avoid unexpected outcomes.

This paper employs a novel graphical technique to illustrate the diverse enrollment patterns of community college students and examines the relationship between these patterns and successful student outcomes.

This paper examines the political forces supporting the enactment of performance funding 2.0 programs—in which performance funding is embedded into base state funding for higher education—in three leading states.

This paper argues that policymaking has been impaired by neglect of the fact that returns to college are high and by acceptance of the myth that the college affordability crisis is due to colleges' wasteful spending.

This publication describes efforts by a growing number of colleges and universities to create “guided pathways” designed to increase the rate at which students enter and complete a program of study.

Based on interviews with stakeholders in California, New York, Tennessee, and West Virginia, this report compares initiatives in these states related to early college readiness assessments and transition curricula.

This two-page policy brief summarizes research on early assessment and college readiness "transition courses" and makes recommendations for states considering the approach.

Based on survey and focus group data from four community colleges, this research brief discusses why many students who go on to enroll in developmental math are unlikely to prepare for the math placement exam.

This brief examines characteristics and course-taking patterns of students who accumulate a substantial number of college credits but do not earn an award by their fifth year of enrollment.

Findings from this paper suggest that while Pell recipients at community colleges have a stronger academic focus than non-Pell recipients, they may be taking more time to complete a credential than is prudent.

Using data from a qualitative investigation of online courses at two community colleges, this paper examines how expectations about the roles of online student and online instructor differ among these two groups.

This journal article reviews the evidence for contextualization, an instructional approach that connects foundational skills and college-level content.

In this discussion paper, the authors argue that the time has come to comprehensively redesign the Pell program, and they propose three major structural reforms to the Pell Grant program.

Using an instrumental variable technique, the authors estimate the impact of online versus face-to-face course delivery on student course performance, as indicated by course persistence and final course grade.