Publications

Using detailed administrative data from Virginia, this journal article examines whether community college “vertical transfer” students who resemble “native four-year” students in their accumulated college-level credits and performance at their point of entry into the four-year sector perform equally well in terms of both academic and labor market outcomes.

This ECS/CAPR brief discusses the importance of and challenges surrounding developmental education and suggests ways in which policymakers can address these challenges.

This CCRC working paper uses data-mining techniques to analyze student transcripts from two states and identify variables associated with excess credits among bachelor’s degree completers who started at a community college.

In this Brookings report, the author analyzes new data on student debt and repayment released by the U.S. Department of Education in October 2017. The author then provides five key findings based on this analysis.

This brief describes the availability of transition courses across the country and offers insights into curricular design and goals, subject-area focus, how students are selected to participate, and whether completion of transition curricula guarantees placement into college-level courses.

This guide aims to help state entities organize workshops for two- and four-year institutions to improve transfer and graduation outcomes for their students through data analysis and self-reflection of institutional practices and the development of action plans.

This paper examines the impact of one transition course model, the At Home in College program, offered to selected high school students in New York City by the City University of New York (CUNY).

This article examines a study on the effectiveness of remediation for community college students who are identified as having the lowest skills in math using transcript data from a state community college system. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.