Publications

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.

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.

Findings from this paper suggest that while Pell recipients at community colleges have a stronger academic focus than non-Pell recipients, they may be taking more time to complete a credential than is prudent.

In this discussion paper, the authors argue that the time has come to comprehensively redesign the Pell program, and they propose three major structural reforms to the Pell Grant program.

This practitioner packet summarizes the research on nonacademic student supports and suggests ways to implement a system of nonacademic supports that will have more sustained impacts on student success.

This article reviews the evidence on various student aid programs and their effects on college enrollment, persistence, and completion and discusses the implications of these findings for aid policy.

This literature review examines the evidence on student decision making in the community college, focusing on the activities most relevant to students’ entry into programs of study—academic and career planning.

Using administrative data from the Virginia Community College System, this paper examines the associations between student success course enrollment and short-term student outcomes.

A study of College 101 courses at three community colleges in Virginia suggests that these courses could have long-term impacts if they focused more on the application and practice of learned skills.

This study examines the effects of student employment on academic outcomes, using a dataset that combines students' transcripts with earning records from the Unemployment Insurance system.

This journal article uses administrative data from West Virginia to provide the first quasi-experimental estimates of the effect of the Federal Work Study (FWS) program.

This paper uses a quasi-experimental approach to identify causal effects of West Virginia's PROMISE scholarship program, which offers free tuition to students who maintain a minimum GPA and course load.

Effective nonacademic supports work by creating social relationships, clarifying goals and enhancing commitment, developing college know-how, and addressing conflicting demands on students.

This paper examines the influence of validation by faculty on students' sense of integration in college and intent to persist.

The eligibility of undocumented students to apply for in-state tuition varies by state. This article analyzes the political origins of divergent responses among states, drawing on the advocacy coalition framework and policy entrepreneurship theory of policymaking.

This paper examines whether Tinto's integration framework—commonly used to examine student persistence in the four-year sector—is applicable to two-year institutions.

In this journal article, the authors examine how student success courses help students develop relationships that provide support and useful information long after the class is over.

This article explores the ways that information networks are related to student persistence in the community college and how institutional structures can encourage such networks.

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

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