Publications

In this National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper, the authors describe the barriers that students face during the transition to college and review the evidence on potential policy solutions.

This CAPSEE working paper examines the returns to education for large numbers of young workers in Arkansas over the period before, during, and after the Great Recession.

This CAPSEE working paper examines the returns to math courses relative to the returns to other courses for students who started their postsecondary education at community college.

Collective impact is a place-based model of educational and social intervention that aims to shift responsibility for improvement in outcomes from ...

Using data on students who entered community college and then transferred, this paper examines the impact on bachelor’s degree attainment of earning an associate degree before transferring to a four-year college.

Using data on students at nine community colleges, this paper examines enrollment patterns and outcomes of students who take noncredit courses, including those who intend to transition to the for-credit sector.

This CAPSEE working paper examines student outcomes at six community colleges in North Carolina that had co-located American Job Centers on their campuses.

This article uses qualitative data from a multi-campus study of instructional reform in developmental education to present a typology of questions raised by community college faculty teaching in reformed contexts.

Using focus group data from students at six colleges, this paper examines student preferences concerning technology-based advising tools and in-person advising sessions for different kinds of advising tasks.

This practitioner packet summarizes CCRC’s research on remedial placement at community colleges and considers how including students’ high school transcript information in the assignment process could improve placement accuracy.

Using two waves of the Beginning Postsecondary Student survey, this paper provides the first national estimates of the effect of the Federal Work-Study program on students' academic and labor market outcomes.

Based on research at six colleges, this guide provides lessons for colleges that want to use increasingly common technology tools to reform advising practices.

This paper reviews how an increase in contingent faculty and an increase in class size might affect efficiency at community colleges.

This report provides an overview of the developmental education redesigns in Virginia and North Carolina, presents preliminary findings, and discusses lessons for states, districts, and colleges pursuing developmental education reforms.

This publication presents findings on the costs of remedial placement testing at three colleges, and it provides guidance on how other colleges could undertake similar analyses.

The authors of this book argue that to substantially increase student completion, community colleges must engage in fundamental redesign and outline research-based strategies to help colleges achieve this goal.

In this book, the authors explore the various forces, actors, and motivations behind the adoption, discontinuation, and transformation of performance funding systems.

In CCRC's 2015 newsletter, Director Thomas Bailey argues for comprehensive reform using a guided pathways approach.

This practitioner packet summarizes evidence supporting the guided pathways reform model, describes how one college implemented guided pathways, and offers tips for getting started on guided pathways reforms.

Based on interviews with over 200 college personnel in Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee, this paper identifies and analyzes the deliberative structures used by colleges and universities to respond to performance funding demands.

Using matched college transcript and earnings data on over 80,000 students entering community college during the 2000s, this CAPSEE working paper examines the returns to math courses.

This chapter addresses structural systems reform and college completion, as well as the role of dual enrollment in ensuring equitable postsecondary outcomes.

Emerging early college models are providing opportunities for high school students to accrue college credits and experience themselves as successful ...

This report looks at the role of two-year Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) in improving postsecondary access and degree completion for disadvantaged students in the United States.

Using a novel method for linking non-completers with completers, this paper calculates the labor market returns to programs of study, accounting both for those who obtain an award and those who do not.

This research overview reviews findings on transfer from community colleges to four-year colleges, including student outcomes, barriers to transfer, the economic benefits of transfer, and potential benefits to four-year colleges.

This brief reviews what states can do to support public colleges and universities so they can effectively respond to the new demands placed on them by performance funding policies.

In this study, the authors examine medium-term returns to diplomas, certificates, and degrees for first-time college students who enrolled in the North Carolina Community College System in 2002–03.

This paper identifies and analyzes the types and numbers of unintended impacts—actual or potential—of state performance funding policies on higher education institutions in three states: Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee.

This paper examines the major obstacles that hinder higher education institutions from responding effectively to the demands of performance funding programs in three states: Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee.

This paper examines the ways that universities and community colleges in Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee have altered their policies, practices, and programs to respond to the demands of performance funding programs.

This study examines the primary policy instruments through which state performance funding systems influence higher education institutions in Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee.

This paper summarizes findings from a large study on the implementation and impacts of performance funding in three states that are regarded as leaders in that movement: Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee.

This study provides one of the first estimates of the returns to different types of community college credentials across different fields of study.

This article provides an overview of sociology’s approach to understanding community colleges. It describes sociological theories and their contributions to the field and discusses recent debates on community colleges.

This study examines three developmental acceleration programs—two in English and one in math—and finds that accelerated students were more likely to complete the relevant college-level course within 3 years.

This chapter describes a promising approach to teaching developmental arithmetic and prealgebra and presents findings on a faculty support network that helped instructors adopt new teaching strategies.

This study examines how well students adapt to the online environment in terms of their ability to persist and earn strong grades in online courses relative to their ability to do so in face-to-face courses.

This chapter reports on a major college-wide effort to smooth students’ paths as they enter the college, choose a program, and progress to a credential.

This article reviews the forms, extent, origins, implementation, impacts (intended and unintended), and policy prospects of performance funding.

This paper introduces a model that uses transcript data matched to credit-level cost data and funding formulae to calculate the implications for efficiency of reforms intended to improve completion rates.

Using detailed data from three community colleges, the authors of this study employ the ingredients method to estimate the costs to colleges and students of remedial placement systems at community college.

Using the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, this CAPSEE working paper evaluates the postsecondary and labor market outcomes of students who attended for-profit colleges.

This report reviews research evidence on college policies designed to facilitate on-time degree completion among students by encouraging them to enroll in at least 15 credits per semester.

This paper uses administrative data and a rich predictive model to examine the accuracy of remedial screening tests, used either with or instead of high school transcript data to determine remedial assignment.

Based on CCRC’s Readiness for Technology Adoption framework, this self-assessment tool provides rubrics to help colleges identify issues that may need to be addressed to facilitate successful reform.

This study uses a difference-in-differences approach to identify the impact of ESL compared with developmental writing at an urban community college system.

This article uses economic, human, and cultural capital theories to frame and then describe access to undergraduate engineering degree programs and bachelor's degrees.

This practitioner packet aims to help colleges identify areas where students struggle due to complexity in the academic decision-making process and devise low-cost solutions.

This working paper presents a case study of how one large, suburban community college planned and implemented a relatively low-cost redesign of its student intake and information provision processes.