Publications

This article details three key challenges that community colleges face: underprepared students, financial stress, and high dropout rates.

This paper explores some of the barriers adult basic education students face in obtaining postsecondary credentials, and how changes in federal policy can improve ABE outcomes.

In this paper, the author argues for a new paradigm in federal workforce education policy, one that privileges capacity-building over compliance.

This paper presents a typology of the institutional partnerships in which community colleges engage so that policymakers can develop fiscal and regulatory policy to support such activities.

This paper contains a summary of the National Community College Symposium, at which experts met to articulate a community college research agenda.

Based on analyses of unit record data of first-time community college students in the state of Florida, this paper examines the role of academic preparation in the transition from community colleges to four-year institutions.

In CCRC's 2008 newsletter, Director Thomas Bailey reviews CCRC's research on dual enrollment and discusses findings that suggest participation in dual enrollment and career-technical dual enrollment is associated with a range of positive postsecondary outcomes.

This guide aims to help community colleges and state agencies analyze the labor market outcomes of their programs and identify opportunities for improving students' employment outcomes.

This paper reviews the research literature on the effectiveness of financial aid, with special attention to its implications for policy.

This article provides a theoretical rationale for policymakers' support for programs that allow high school students to take college-level classes for credit.

This summary is intended to help decision-makers understand why research on the effectiveness of dual enrollment programs is important and how policymakers can support research activities.

This report discusses findings and recommendations from a study of the New York City Virtual Enterprises International program, in which students create and run virtual businesses.

This essay describes the characteristics of community college students and discusses the role of the community college in increasing access to higher education by traditionally underserved students.

This paper analyzes how effective ATE regional centers, which work with community colleges and businesses in a single region to improve technical education, have been in meeting their goals.

This report describes how Miami Dade College is using a variety of data to make better-informed choices about the operation of student programs and services.

This working paper provides a conceptual framework for the rigorous evaluation of remedial education interventions.

This guide is intended to help researchers in colleges and state agencies use longitudinal student unit record data to create simple and meaningful statistics on student achievement.

This study examines the ways that student support services in community colleges inadvertently perpetuate and legitimate disadvantage.

CCRC researcher Melinda Mechur Karp reviews After Admission: From College Access to College Success.

This book chapter reviews three dominant strategies to create academic linkages between high school and college—remediation, dual enrollment, and the high school/college alignment movement.

This report, written for the Connecticut Community College System, summarizes key findings on effective developmental education practice.

This paper reveals unique findings from a study that compared educational outcomes of older and traditional-age students.

This brief reports the findings from a CCRC study on the effectiveness of student success courses at Florida community colleges.

This report describes the early progress that the first 27 Achieving the Dream colleges made after one year of implementation.

This report, the first in CCRC's Culture of Evidence Series, presents findings from a CCRC study on how community colleges are using their own data and research to work toward improving student success.

This working paper examines how Florida community colleges responded to the introduction of a new merit-based financial aid program.

In CCRC's 2007 newsletter, Director Thomas Bailey argues that in order to improve, community colleges need to make better use of student data. He discusses CCRC's involvement in two national initiatives that emphasize the use of data to inform institutional decision making.

This report describes what policies all 50 states have in place with respect to key community college practices in three main areas: access, success, and performance accountability.

This paper explores whether dual enrollment helps students learn about the role of college student.

This working paper explores the impact of students' reasons for enrollment and educational expectations on their outcomes and, thus, on the performance of their college.

This working paper examines the validity of the Student Right-to-Know (SRK) graduation rates as measures of community college performance.

This chapter examines the extent to which career academies deliver on their promises.

This article describes how the missions of the community college have varied over time and across geographical regions, and examines how missions complement and conflict with one another.

This article explores the evolution of the workforce development role of the community college, its interactions with other missions of the college, and the current crisis facing workforce development.

This special issue of New Directions for Community Colleges aims to stimulate community college leaders to reexamine their institution’s functional missions in the context of the community college’s societal missions.

This literature review locates the sources of challenges to academic momentum in both student characteristics as well as state and institutional practices and policies.

This article calls for community colleges, on behalf of their students, to join the national discussion of how income and wealth are created.

This report provides an audit of state policies in Ohio affecting access to, and success in, community colleges for students of color and low-income students.

This report provides an audit of state policies in Connecticut affecting access to, and success in, community colleges for students of color and low-income students.

This article features findings from a commissioned audit of state policies on community college access, success, and accountability in seven states.

This paper presents findings from CCRC's study on the experiences and educational outcomes of older and younger community college students.

This article reports on a study that tracked the academic progress of a cohort of nursing aspirants over a three-year period.

The research described in this report uses student enrollment, credit accumulation, and outcome attainment data to assess the extent to which CUNY provides access to postsecondary educational opportunity and achievement for these students.

This article examines horizontal and vertical workforce transitions and how a global economy and the need to train new subpopulations of future workers will cause community colleges to approach their roles in workforce training differently.

This brief describes the methodology CCRC researchers used to estimate the socioeconomic status of individual students in the Washington State community and technical college system.

This article discusses the use of regression analysis to evaluate public and private institutions serving vastly different populations.

This study seeks to identify policies and practices of community colleges that are effective in enabling their students to succeed in postsecondary education.

In this book, CCRC researchers analyze how colleges have tried to improve their performance with respect to low-income students, students of color, and nontraditional students.

In CCRC's 2006 newsletter, Director Thomas Bailey discusses how attention to the postsecondary achievement of community college students has grown over the past 10 years and how that attention represents a shift from an exclusive focus on access and equity.

This article advances the literature on the impact of community colleges on baccalaureate attainment by estimating new models that allow controlling for pathways of enrollment while using different measures of educational expectations and correcting for college choice.