Publications

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.

CCRC’s 2020-2022 Biennial Report tells the story of CCRC’s impact on the field through quotes from community college leaders and statistics about our outreach efforts. It also talks about the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic had on the research process. The report marks CCRC’s 25th anniversary, discusses other major areas of research, and provides a snapshot of the center’s finances.

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.