Publications
Establishing the Backbone: An Underexplored Facet of Collective Impact Efforts
This brief, the second in CCRC’s Corridors of College Success series, describes the challenges that early-stage collective impact communities face as they work to identify potential backbone organizations and establish a backbone structure.
What We Know About Transition Courses
Based on research as well as discussion among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers from seven states, this overview summarizes the state of knowledge on transition courses.
Implementation of High School-to-College Transition Courses in Four States
Based on a qualitative study, this report describes the implementation of transition courses in English and math in California, New York City, Tennessee, and West Virginia.
Tracking Transfer: New Measures of Institutional and State Effectiveness in Helping Community College Students Attain Bachelor’s Degrees
This report uses five metrics to measure the effectiveness of two- and four-year institutions in enabling community college students to transfer to four-year institutions and earn bachelor’s degrees.
Examining the Earnings Trajectories of Community College Students Using a Piecewise Growth Curve Modeling Approach
This paper introduces a piecewise growth approach to analyzing labor market outcomes of students, and it discusses how insights gained from the approach can be used to strengthen econometric analyses of labor market returns.
What About Certificates? Evidence on the Labor Market Returns to Non-Degree Community College Awards in Two States
Based on administrative data from two state community college systems, this paper explores the relationship between earning a certificate and students’ post-college earnings and employment status.
Developmental Reading and English Assessment in a Researcher-Practitioner Partnership
This paper reports findings from a researcher-practitioner partnership that assessed the readiness for postsecondary reading and writing demands of 211 students in developmental reading and English courses in two community colleges.
Improving College Access in the United States: Barriers and Policy Responses
In this National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper, the authors describe the barriers that students face during the transition to college and review the evidence on potential policy solutions.
Weathering the Great Recession With Human Capital? Evidence on Labor Market Returns to Education From Arkansas
This CAPSEE working paper examines the returns to education for large numbers of young workers in Arkansas over the period before, during, and after the Great Recession.
Should Community College Students Earn an Associate Degree Before Transferring to a Four-Year Institution?
Using data on students who entered community college and then transferred, this paper examines the impact on bachelor’s degree attainment of earning an associate degree before transferring to a four-year college.
The Labor Market Returns to Math in Community College: Evidence Using the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002
This CAPSEE working paper examines the returns to math courses relative to the returns to other courses for students who started their postsecondary education at community college.
Lessons From the Corridors of College Success Initiative: An Introduction
This brief, the first in CCRC’s Corridors of College Success Series, provides an overview of the Ford Foundation’s Corridors of College Success initiative and the collective impact model of educational and social intervention.
Noncredit Education in Community College: Students, Course Enrollments, and Academic Outcomes
Using data on students at nine community colleges, this paper examines enrollment patterns and outcomes of students who take noncredit courses, including those who intend to transition to the for-credit sector.
The Impact of Co-locating American Job Centers on Community College Campuses in North Carolina
This CAPSEE working paper examines student outcomes at six community colleges in North Carolina that had co-located American Job Centers on their campuses.
Examining Faculty Questions to Facilitate Instructional Improvement in Higher Education
This article uses qualitative data from a multi-campus study of instructional reform in developmental education to present a typology of questions raised by community college faculty teaching in reformed contexts.
Student Attitudes Toward Technology-Mediated Advising Systems
Using focus group data from students at six colleges, this paper examines student preferences concerning technology-based advising tools and in-person advising sessions for different kinds of advising tasks.
Should Student Employment Be Subsidized? Conditional Counterfactuals and the Outcomes of Work-Study Participation
Using two waves of the Beginning Postsecondary Student survey, this paper provides the first national estimates of the effect of the Federal Work-Study program on students' academic and labor market outcomes.
Improving the Accuracy of Remedial Placement
This practitioner packet summarizes CCRC’s research on remedial placement at community colleges and considers how including students’ high school transcript information in the assignment process could improve placement accuracy.
Using Technology to Reform Advising: Insights From Colleges
Based on research at six colleges, this guide provides lessons for colleges that want to use increasingly common technology tools to reform advising practices.
Efficiency Gains in Community Colleges: Two Areas for Further Investigation
This paper reviews how an increase in contingent faculty and an increase in class size might affect efficiency at community colleges.