Publications

This ECS/CAPR brief discusses the importance of and challenges surrounding developmental education and suggests ways in which policymakers can address these challenges.

This CCRC working paper uses data-mining techniques to analyze student transcripts from two states and identify variables associated with excess credits among bachelor’s degree completers who started at a community college.

In this Brookings report, the author analyzes new data on student debt and repayment released by the U.S. Department of Education in October 2017. The author then provides five key findings based on this analysis.

This brief describes the availability of transition courses across the country and offers insights into curricular design and goals, subject-area focus, how students are selected to participate, and whether completion of transition curricula guarantees placement into college-level courses.

This guide aims to help state entities organize workshops for two- and four-year institutions to improve transfer and graduation outcomes for their students through data analysis and self-reflection of institutional practices and the development of action plans.

This paper examines the impact of one transition course model, the At Home in College program, offered to selected high school students in New York City by the City University of New York (CUNY).

This article examines a study on the effectiveness of remediation for community college students who are identified as having the lowest skills in math using transcript data from a state community college system.

This guide provides instructions for community colleges that want to use National Student Clearinghouse data to assess their own effectiveness and that of particular transfer partnerships in helping students to transfer and complete bachelor’s degrees.

This paper discusses the organization, roles, and contributions of community colleges, and it analyzes reforms that have been proposed and enacted to meet ongoing challenges.

Using national, survey, and college-system-level datasets, this paper estimates the association between stackable credentials and earnings, finding weakly positive and inconsistent gains from these award combinations.

This journal article offers a set of essential transfer practices culled from national fieldwork to two- and four-year institutional transfer partnerships identified using NSC data as highly effective in supporting transfer student success.

Using student data, this report provides information on the outcomes of students who attended Macomb Community College and then transferred to one of 14 four-year destination colleges.

In this Brookings report, the author examines the policy landscape and reviews available evidence to assess the potential benefits and costs of thinking beyond the box in college admissions. The author then offers six key findings that have emerged from this review.

This report uses student enrollment and degree records from the National Student Clearinghouse to examine who enrolls in community college dual enrollment courses and what happens to them after high school.

With the goal of informing federal higher education policy decisions, this brief for the Urban Institute suggests federal student aid reform that simplifies the eligibility and application process.

This report describes how Ohio’s two-year colleges are approaching guided pathways reforms, focusing on innovations they have implemented in recent years that can serve as building blocks as they seek to transform their policies, practices, and culture following the guided pathways model.

This CAPR working paper provides an overview of the history of college placement testing, with a focus on nonselective colleges. The authors discuss the limitations of placement tests, the consequences of placement errors, and the movement toward changing systems of placement; a typology of approaches to assessment and placement is also described.

This set of tools aims to help community colleges and broad-access four-year colleges assess their work on technology-mediated advising and student support, sometimes referred to as Integrated Planning and Advising for Student Success (iPASS).

Using interview, focus group, and case study data, this paper documents the perceptions and experiences of faculty members in the midst of statewide reform efforts in Virginia and North Carolina to integrate developmental reading and writing courses.

Using interview data from students at three community colleges, this paper examines shifts in confidence that students experience early in their college careers.

This study explores the influence of different types of leadership approaches on the implementation of a technology-mediated advising reform at six colleges, and assesses which types of leadership are associated with transformative organizational change.

This review draws from the experiences of colleges awarded the Kisco Foundation’s Kohlberg Prize to highlight the practical and philosophical challenges involved in creating integrated services for student veterans.

Based on a mixed-methods study at six colleges, this brief examines the domestic population served by American Honors; its key programmatic features; and community college student, faculty, and staff perspectives on the program.

This Brookings report discusses what role the Federal Work-Study program might have in a modern “college completion and career readiness” agenda.

Using interview data from first-year students at City Colleges of Chicago (CCC), this brief describes students’ reactions to important components of CCC’s recent guided pathways reform efforts.

Using data from two state systems, this paper examines whether it is more efficient for bachelor’s degree seekers to start at a two-year college.

This chapter argues that substantially increasing college completion rates requires comprehensive institutional reform with a focus on measurable student success, an intentional and cohesive package of programmatic components, and a culture of evidence.

This paper addresses empirical challenges in identifying stackable credentials, distinguishes three types of stackable awards, and estimates the number of persons who earn such awards. It then discusses the utility of these awards in meeting labor market demands and needs of students.

This report provides insight into how colleges are planning and implementing “guided pathways” reforms based on the early work of 30 colleges participating in the American Association of Community Colleges’ (AACC) Pathways Project.

In CCRC's 2017 newsletter, Director Thomas Bailey discusses how CAPSEE research has contributed to the understanding of the value of investing in a college education.

This report examines the consequences of ending free college in England, and considers what lessons may be drawn for the U.S. policy conversation.

This paper provides an overview of undergraduate financial aid to inform discussions of the future of undergraduate education in the United States and the role of financial aid within it.

This CAPSEE working paper reviews results from fixed effects models of the earnings gains from completing an associate degree and compares them with ordinary least squares model estimates.

This CAPSEE working paper and accompanying brief review recent evidence from eight states on the labor market returns to credit accumulation, certificates, and associate degrees from community colleges using large-scale, statewide administrative datasets.

Based on recent CAPSEE studies in two states, this brief discusses the motivations for satisfactory academic progress requirements for federal aid, examines how community college students are affected, and assesses the implications for program efficiency and equity.

This brief discusses current research, including CAPSEE analysis, regarding both the effectiveness of the Federal Work-Study (FWS) program and its equity in terms of the distribution of funds.

Using an administrative data set from one state, this paper examines the effects of receiving a modest Pell Grant on financial aid packages, labor supply while in school, and academic outcomes for community college students.

This practitioner packet summarizes CCRC’s research on technology-mediated advising reform and discusses how institutions are attempting to transform advising systems so that they can support a more intensive and personalized case-management model.

Using site visit data from three community colleges and four high schools, this paper explores how the institutional context of the high schools compared with that of the colleges in ways that may have affected the implementation and efficacy of computer-mediated mathematics.

In this brief, the authors propose three measures of early academic momentum that colleges can use to gauge whether institutional reforms are improving student outcomes

Based on three sets of analyses, this report to the Greater Texas Foundation recommends ways that state policy could help to improve outcomes for community college transfer students in Texas.

This CAPSEE working paper uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to provide new, nationally representative, non-experimental estimates of the returns to degrees, as well as to assess the possible limitations of single-state, administrative-data-based estimates.

This book explores the how and why of the federal regulatory policymaking process as it pertains to higher education, financial aid, and student loan debt.

This journal article examines the impacts of different levels of developmental reading and writing on students’ academic outcomes.

This CAPSEE working paper examines the prevalence and consequences of Pell Grant recipients’ failure to meet the standards for satisfactory academic progress required for grant renewal.

This NBER working paper uses state administrative data and unemployment records to construct a variety of possible institution-level labor market outcome metrics to explore how sensitive institutional ratings are to the choice of labor market metric, length of follow-up, and inclusion of adjustments for student characteristics.

This chapter examines the use of technology and other structural changes to encourage comprehensive advising reforms.

This chapter describes the structure and implementation of a redesign of developmental education in the Virginia Community College System, discusses preliminary descriptive findings from an evaluation of the redesign, and shares lessons for the field.

Using proximity to the closest four-year college as an instrumental variable, this CAPSEE working paper analyzes public higher education data from an anonymous state to examine how enrolling in summer credits can impact college and labor market outcomes.

This practice guide presents six evidence-based recommendations for college and university faculty, administrators, and advisors working to improve the success of students academically underprepared for college.