Publications
Gaining Access or Losing Ground? Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Students in Undergraduate Engineering, 1994–2003
This article uses economic, human, and cultural capital theories to frame and then describe access to undergraduate engineering degree programs and bachelor's degrees.
Adopting New Technologies for Student Success: A Readiness Framework
This report presents a framework that identifies characteristics associated with colleges’ readiness to adopt technology-based reforms, emphasizing the need for both technological and cultural readiness.
Can Community Colleges Continue to Do More With Less?
In light of cost-cutting practices used by community colleges today, this article argues that the emphasis of policy and practice should be on improving efficiency: the cost per completion of a high-quality credential.
Accelerating the Integrated Instruction of Developmental Reading and Writing at Chabot College
This paper compares the academic outcomes of students at Chabot College who participated in an accelerated, one-semester developmental English course and those who enrolled in a two-semester sequence.
Increasing Access to College-Level Math: Early Outcomes Using the Virginia Placement Test
This brief examines changes in entry-level college math enrollment and completion rates in Virginia's community colleges after the introduction of a new math placement test and placement policy.
CCRC Currents 2014
In CCRC's 2014 newsletter, Director Thomas Bailey argues that comprehensive reform has the potential to move the needle on college completion.
"They Never Told Me What to Expect, So I Didn't Know What to Do": Defining and Clarifying the Role of a Community College Student
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.
Efficiency in the Community College Sector: Stochastic Frontier Analysis
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.
Choosing Between Online and Face-to-Face Courses
This article discusses community college students’ experiences with online and face-to-face learning and implications for community colleges.
An Examination of the Impact of Accelerating Community College Students' Progression Through Developmental Education
This journal article examines the impact of acceleration on access, performance, credit accumulation, and degree attainment at CUNY.
Designing Meaningful Developmental Reform
This practitioner packet provides tools to help community college administrators effectively implement reforms to developmental education at their colleges.
Faculty Orientations Toward Instructional Reform
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.
Performance Funding: Impacts, Obstacles, and Unintended Outcomes
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.
Intensity and Attachment: How the Chaotic Enrollment Patterns of Community College Students Affect Educational 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.
The Political Origins of Performance Funding 2.0 in Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee: Theoretical Perspectives and Comparisons With Performance Funding 1.0
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.
Community College Economics for Policymakers: The One Big Fact and the One Big Myth
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.
Get With the Program ... and Finish It: Building Guided Pathways to Accelerate Student Completion
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.
Reshaping the College Transition: Early College Readiness Assessments and Transition Curricula in Four States
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.
Early Assessments and Transition Curricula: What States Can Do
This two-page policy brief summarizes research on early assessment and college readiness "transition courses" and makes recommendations for states considering the approach.
Why Students Do Not Prepare for Math Placement Exams: Student Perspectives
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.