Publications
Institutional Changes to Organizational Policies, Practices, and Programs Following the Adoption of State-Level Performance Funding Policies
This paper examines the ways that universities and community colleges in Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee have altered their policies, practices, and programs to respond to the demands of performance funding programs.
Obstacles to the Effective Implementation of Performance Funding: A Multistate Cross-Case Analysis
This paper examines the major obstacles that hinder higher education institutions from responding effectively to the demands of performance funding programs in three states: Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee.
Unintended Impacts of Performance Funding on Community Colleges and Universities in Three States
This paper identifies and analyzes the types and numbers of unintended impacts—actual or potential—of state performance funding policies on higher education institutions in three states: Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee.
Labor Market Returns to Sub-Baccalaureate Credentials: How Much Does a Community College Degree or Certificate Pay?
This study provides one of the first estimates of the returns to different types of community college credentials across different fields of study.
On Second Chances and Stratification: How Sociologists Think About Community Colleges
This article provides an overview of sociology’s approach to understanding community colleges. It describes sociological theories and their contributions to the field and discusses recent debates on community colleges.
Three Accelerated Developmental Education Programs: Features, Student Outcomes, and Implications
This study examines three developmental acceleration programs—two in English and one in math—and finds that accelerated students were more likely to complete the relevant college-level course within 3 years.
Redesigning Arithmetic for Student Success: Supporting Faculty to Teach in New Ways
This chapter describes a promising approach to teaching developmental arithmetic and prealgebra and presents findings on a faculty support network that helped instructors adopt new teaching strategies.
Strengthening Program Pathways Through Transformative Change
This chapter reports on a major college-wide effort to smooth students’ paths as they enter the college, choose a program, and progress to a credential.
Adaptability to Online Learning: Differences Across Types of Students and Academic Subject Areas
This study examines how well students adapt to the online environment in terms of their ability to persist and earn strong grades in online courses relative to their ability to do so in face-to-face courses.
Performance Funding for Higher Education: Forms, Origins, Impacts, and Futures
This article reviews the forms, extent, origins, implementation, impacts (intended and unintended), and policy prospects of performance funding.
Can Community Colleges Afford to Improve Completion? Measuring the Costs and Efficiency Effects of College Reforms
This paper introduces a model that uses transcript data matched to credit-level cost data and funding formulae to calculate the implications for efficiency of reforms intended to improve completion rates.
Improving the Targeting of Treatment: Evidence From College Remediation
This paper uses administrative data and a rich predictive model to examine the accuracy of remedial screening tests, used either with or instead of high school transcript data to determine remedial assignment.
Remedial Placement Testing in Community Colleges: What Resources Are Required, and What Does It Cost?
Using detailed data from three community colleges, the authors of this study employ the ingredients method to estimate the costs to colleges and students of remedial placement systems at community college.
Evaluating For-Profit Higher Education: Evidence From the Education Longitudinal Study
Using the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, this CAPSEE working paper evaluates the postsecondary and labor market outcomes of students who attended for-profit colleges.
Redefining Full-Time in College: Evidence on 15-Credit Strategies
This report reviews research evidence on college policies designed to facilitate on-time degree completion among students by encouraging them to enroll in at least 15 credits per semester.
Evaluating Your College's Readiness for Technology Adoption
Based on CCRC’s Readiness for Technology Adoption framework, this self-assessment tool provides rubrics to help colleges identify issues that may need to be addressed to facilitate successful reform.
The Effects of English as a Second Language Courses on Language Minority Community College Students
This study uses a difference-in-differences approach to identify the impact of ESL compared with developmental writing at an urban community college system.
Simplifying Complexity in the Student Experience
This practitioner packet aims to help colleges identify areas where students struggle due to complexity in the academic decision-making process and devise low-cost solutions.
Redesigning the Student Intake and Information Provision Processes at a Large Comprehensive Community College
This working paper presents a case study of how one large, suburban community college planned and implemented a relatively low-cost redesign of its student intake and information provision processes.
Developmental Education Aligned to the Common Core State Standards: Insights and Illustrations
Based on interview data, this discussion paper explores whether faculty and college leaders are considering or undertaking reforms of developmental education informed by the Common Core State Standards.