Publications

Based on interview data, this report examines a set of seven strategies that presidents of community colleges implementing Caring Campus are using to develop a more positive college culture and to support this culture-focused reform.

This fact sheet discusses how important Pell Grants are for community college students and describes recent and proposed changes in the Pell Grant program.

Using data from Texas, this paper describes dual enrollment course characteristics such as instructor affiliation, location, and modality and examines how these characteristics predict students’ course completion, course grades, and subsequent college enrollment.

This brief examines research on five programs—AP, IB, dual enrollment, ECHSs and P-TECHs, and high school CTE with articulated credit—and assesses their potential as large-scale on-ramps to high-quality postsecondary programs for underrepresented students.

This paper examines how the process of making higher education choices in the U.S.—whether to enter higher education, attend a particular college, or follow a particular path through college—produces and legitimates social inequality.

This report describes the diversity and complexity of community college state finance systems, and how to identify the often competing incentives within them, by comparing the systems of three very different states: California, Ohio, and Texas.

This report describes the rationale, goals, and activities of the Strengthening Michigan Humanities project, and it provides statewide statistics and trends on community college enrollment, transfer, and bachelor’s degree completion in humanities fields.

Using administrative data from the City University of New York (CUNY), this paper examines the impact of the summer Pell program on community college student persistence, completion, and employment outcomes.

Using an innovative text mining technique on transcript data from a large public college system, this paper examines patterns and post-degree labor market outcomes of taking work-based courses at two-year and four-year colleges in that system.

Using three case studies, this paper examines the conditions under which dual enrollment programming could be made sustainable through efficiency gains, even for colleges that charge discounted tuition (or none at all)

This report shares results of research undertaken to understand what five iPASS institutions were doing before and during the iPASS grant period to advise and support Black, Latinx, and low-income students both in and outside the classroom.

Caring Campus/Faculty is a program aimed at increasing students’ connection to college; this report shares findings from a study on how it is being adopted at several colleges, including insights into effective faculty engagement and implementation.

Using a regression discontinuity approach and data from two cohorts of students in one state, this paper examines the effect of taking dual enrollment credits on the number of in-state public colleges students apply and are admitted to and the selectivity of those colleges.

Using employer-employee-student matched administrative data from Ohio, this paper provides the first direct evidence of workers' enrollment responses following mass layoffs in the United States.

In a review of impact and implementation studies from the past ten years, this CAPR report summarizes what is known about how innovations to developmental education can improve student outcomes, and it draws out five principles that are key for reform.

This report and accompanying case studies describe how three small colleges have made large-scale changes in practice based on the guided pathways model and how they funded and are sustaining these changes to improve rates of student progression and completion.

This CAPR brief provides guidance to institutions seeking to design and implement placement systems that redress limitations of test-only systems and that work in conjunction with other reforms to generate more equitable outcomes.

Using nine years of data from one state, this paper tracks completion and transfer outcomes to examine when gaps between Black, Hispanic, and White community college students occur, and it estimates the benefits of reaching early academic milestones for such students.

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.

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.

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 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.

This report describes a project undertaken by CCRC, Education Northwest, and three Oregon community colleges to adapt lesson study for use among faculty teaching a precollege (developmental) quantitative literacy course.

This report describes how CCRC’s thinking about guided pathways has evolved since the publication of Redesigning America’s Community Colleges in 2015.

This article argues that by tying instructional improvement efforts to ongoing reforms, colleges may be able to take advantage of structures and mechanisms employed by the reform to make teaching an institutional priority.

This fact sheet describes the importance of academic and nonacademic services, particularly for underserved students, and how students that receive targeted, intensive support experience improved outcomes.

This fact sheet outlines challenges in supporting successful student transfer from community colleges to four-year institutions and considerations for improving the transfer process.

This fact sheet describes how traditional developmental education may have unintended consequences for students and the growing body of research evidence on promising reforms.

This fact sheet outlines how the Federal Work-Study program works, its effects on academic and labor market outcomes, and why so few community college students receive Federal Work-Study aid.

This fact sheet discusses the rate of borrowing among students in different sectors, how community college students can benefit from access to loans, and the wide disparities in default by race and income.

CCRC offers a short primer on the multiple missions of these institutions, what kinds of students they enroll, what outcomes they produce, and some of the major issues they face.

This article establishes the importance of adjunct faculty in supporting student success, describes the experiences of adjunct faculty, and offers suggestions for disciplinary societies that seek to meet the needs of adjunct faculty.

This report examines how Ohio community colleges—which have been engaged in guided pathways reform for several years—are innovating within the model to provide scaled, personalized support to help students gain early academic momentum.

This set of three studies examines what states and community colleges can do to address the needs of racially minoritized adult learners who are pursuing postsecondary education and training as a path to re-employment, better jobs, and higher incomes.