Publications
Greater Equity in College Access Through High School/College Dual Enrollment Programs
The brief, published by The Campaign for College Opportunity, summarizes the research on dual enrollment programs and offers policymakers a strategy to increase college enrollment and attainment via such efforts.
A Foundation and a Fire: Strengthening Humanities Education in Community Colleges
Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data, this report presents findings from research on humanities coursetaking at Michigan community colleges conducted as part of the Strengthening Michigan Humanities project.
Rethinking Dual Enrollment as an Equitable On-Ramp to a Career-Path College Degree Program After High School
This report presents the dual enrollment equity pathways (DEEP) framework, which aims to expand access to dual enrollment and redesign practices so that underserved students can use it to pursue a high-value postsecondary degree program directly after high school.
DEEP Insights: Redesigning Dual Enrollment as a Purposeful Pathway to College and Career Opportunity
This report describes dual enrollment equity pathways (DEEP) reforms implemented by six community college–K-12 partnerships in Florida and Texas, and it provides insights and guidance for other colleges and schools interested in undertaking DEEP reforms.
Toward a Practical Set of STEM Transfer Program Momentum Metrics
Drawing on administrative records from transfer-intending community college starters across three states, this paper develops a set of early STEM momentum metrics that are useful indicators of subsequent STEM transfer and bachelor’s degree attainment.
Lessons from the Dana Center’s Corequisite Research Design Collaborative Study
Based on interview, focus group, observational, and student survey data, this CAPR brief presents findings on the design and implementation of corequisite developmental courses at four colleges, and it highlights lessons for other colleges.
Engaging the College Community in Guided Pathways Reforms: Advice From Project Leaders at AACC Pathways Colleges
This brief details advice from leaders—including college presidents, senior administrators, faculty, and staff֫— who were involved in planning, overseeing, or coordinating guided pathways reforms at the 30 colleges that participated in the AACC Pathways Project.
Innovating at Scale: Guided Pathways Adoption and Early Student Momentum Among the AACC Pathways Colleges
Drawing on interviews as well as self-assessment and performance data, this report discusses what the AACC Pathways colleges have accomplished in their guided pathways reforms over the past seven years and what they have learned about institutional transformation.
Whole-College Guided Pathways Reform Practices: Scale of Adoption by Community Colleges in Three States
Based on institutional survey data, this report presents findings from a study on the scale of adoption of guided pathways practices at community and technical colleges in Ohio, Tennessee, and Washington State.
Healthcare Training Programs in Community Colleges: A Landscape Analysis of Program Availability and Student Completions
This report uses IPEDS data to better understand healthcare training programs and the current role that community colleges play in training healthcare workers, including public health workers.
Pandemic Relief Funding for Community Colleges
This ARCC Network brief describes Higher Education Emergency Relief funding the federal government provided to community colleges, and it provides a first look at how much funding was awarded to and spent by the colleges through February 2023.
Implementing Caring Campus: Strategies College Presidents Use to Improve Culture and Support Reform
Based on interview data, this report examines a set of seven strategies that presidents of community colleges implementing Caring Campus are using to develop a more positive college culture and to support this culture-focused reform.
Pell Grants and Community College Students
This policy fact sheet discusses revenue streams for community colleges, disparity in resources relative to public four-year colleges, and federal spending, including COVID-19 relief funding.
Dually Noted: Understanding the Link Between Dual Enrollment Course Characteristics and Students’ Course and College Enrollment Outcomes
Using data from Texas, this paper describes dual enrollment course characteristics such as instructor affiliation, location, and modality and examines how these characteristics predict students’ course completion, course grades, and subsequent college enrollment.
Assessing College-Credit-in-High-School Programs as On-Ramps to Postsecondary Career Pathways for Underrepresented Students
This brief examines research on five programs—AP, IB, dual enrollment, ECHSs and P-TECHs, and high school CTE with articulated credit—and assesses their potential as large-scale on-ramps to high-quality postsecondary programs for underrepresented students.
Choice Is Not Always Good: Reducing the Role of Informational Inequality in Producing and Legitimating Higher Education Inequality
This paper examines how the process of making higher education choices in the U.S.—whether to enter higher education, attend a particular college, or follow a particular path through college—produces and legitimates social inequality.
Mapping Community College Finance Systems to Develop Equitable and Effective Finance Policy
This report describes the diversity and complexity of community college state finance systems, and how to identify the often competing incentives within them, by comparing the systems of three very different states: California, Ohio, and Texas.
Smoothing Pathways to Transfer in the Humanities: A Report on the Strengthening Michigan Humanities Project
This report describes the rationale, goals, and activities of the Strengthening Michigan Humanities project, and it provides statewide statistics and trends on community college enrollment, transfer, and bachelor’s degree completion in humanities fields.
Six Years Later: Examining the Academic and Employment Outcomes of the Original and Reinstated Summer Pell
Using administrative data from the City University of New York (CUNY), this paper examines the impact of the summer Pell program on community college student persistence, completion, and employment outcomes.
Understanding Experiential Learning Through Work-Based College Coursetaking: Evidence From Transcript Data Using a Text Mining Technique
Using an innovative text mining technique on transcript data from a large public college system, this paper examines patterns and post-degree labor market outcomes of taking work-based courses at two-year and four-year colleges in that system.