Publications

This fact sheet describes how community colleges hold potential for diversifying the STEM workforce as well as the challenges that community college students face in completing STEM programs.

This journal article examines how students at six community colleges identified and weighed possible transfer destination colleges, and how dedicated and personalized advisement shaped students’ transfer plans and contributed to their transfer outcomes.

This paper presents a methodology for assessing the scale of adoption and estimating the causal effects of guided pathways within states and across colleges that have adopted the approach.

Using data from the Education Longitudinal Study and a propensity score matching approach, this paper compares outcomes of four-year college students who earned either 1–10 credits or no credits at a community college.

This CAPR brief provides a taxonomy of various informed self-placement (ISP) systems, shares descriptive data from three colleges using ISP, and identifies important equity and access considerations for implementation.

Based on fieldwork at six institutions, this report describes how colleges are implementing Caring Campus/Staff, a program designed to engage nonacademic staff in improving interactions with students and fostering a culture of caring at community colleges.

This brief describes the motivation, research evidence, and equity implications that underlie the Ask-Connect-Inspire-Plan framework as a useful strategy for community colleges.

Using data on students enrolled in two- and four-year colleges of the City University of New York, this essay assesses the distribution of benefits of the scholarship program in terms of who qualifies for, receives, and renews awards.

Using administrative data, this report examines early college outcomes of students placed into corequisite reading courses at the 13 community colleges in the Tennessee Board of Regents system.

Based on fieldwork at eight institutions, this report describes how community colleges are responding to workplace technology innovation by adapting their workforce programming, diversifying pathways to certificates and degrees, and addressing equity concerns.

Based on interviews with educators who are rethinking and revising secondary math coursework, this report describes the role of higher education in influencing high school math reform nationally and in three particular states.

This paper provides the first causal evidence on a system-wide corequisite reform, using data from all 13 community colleges affiliated with the Tennessee Board of Regents.

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.

This article describes how lesson study—a structured, collaborative professional development intervention—encouraged developmental mathematics faculty at three community colleges to implement new approaches to instruction.

This CAPR brief describes two recent experimental studies of multiple measures assessment, in which colleges use measures beyond placement test scores to determine students’ college readiness.

This essay discusses how students and community colleges responded to the pandemic and what their experiences reveal about inequities in higher education.

This report describes findings from a random assignment study examining the implementation, cost, and efficacy of multiple measures assessments for placing students into college-level or developmental courses.

Drawing on findings from a study of postsecondary college transcript and degree records, this brief describes metrics that may be useful in assessing efforts to improve STEM transfer outcomes.

Based on fieldwork at four guided pathways colleges, this report introduces a cross-sector pathways model and highlights emerging practices and strategies that community colleges are using to build stronger connections with employers, universities, and K-12 schools.

This brief describes results from a nationally representative survey of American workers aged 24–64 to learn what training providers they have used and what their experiences have been with these providers.