Publications

This NBER working paper outlines tax-based student aid programs and assesses their impact on student behavior

This paper discusses the implementation of modularized developmental mathematics reforms in North Carolina and Virginia, presents student outcomes for two distinct course structures, and considers the opportunities and challenges they present.

Using detailed administrative data from Virginia, this CAPSEE working paper examines how and why the community college pathway to a baccalaureate influences students’ degree attainment and short-term labor market performance.

In CCRC's 2016 newsletter, CCRC Director Thomas Bailey writes about the growth and influence of the guided pathways model.

In addition to drawing on the existing body of research on performance funding, this journal article reports data from a study of the implementation of performance funding in three leading states (Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee) and its impacts on three universities and three community colleges in each state.

This brief examines the corequisite remediation model as it was implemented in Tennessee community colleges in fall 2015 and finds that it is more cost-effective than the prerequisite remediation model the colleges formerly used.

This study uses a regression discontinuity design to estimate the effect of participation in a mathematics transition course on college-level math outcomes in West Virginia for the 2011–12 and 2012–13 high school senior cohorts.

Based on a qualitative and quantitative study at Bronx Community College, this paper provides findings on students who take First Year Seminar, a recently redesigned student success course.

This paper introduces an online course quality rubric addressing four quality areas, and it examines the relationship between each quality area and student end-of-semester performance.

This Corridors of College Success brief highlights challenges involved in collective impact work and provides a lens for understanding why well-intentioned collective impact efforts may not take root.

This Jobs for the Future publication proposes research-based milestones of student momentum from twelfth grade through the first year of college, and suggests ways that local high school and college partners can collaborate to support student success.

This brief, the second in CCRC’s Corridors of College Success series, describes the challenges that early-stage collective impact communities face as they work to identify potential backbone organizations and establish a backbone structure.

Based on research as well as discussion among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers from seven states, this overview summarizes the state of knowledge on transition courses.

Based on a qualitative study, this report describes the implementation of transition courses in English and math in California, New York City, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

This paper introduces a piecewise growth approach to analyzing labor market outcomes of students, and it discusses how insights gained from the approach can be used to strengthen econometric analyses of labor market returns.

This report uses five metrics to measure the effectiveness of two- and four-year institutions in enabling community college students to transfer to four-year institutions and earn bachelor’s degrees.

Based on administrative data from two state community college systems, this paper explores the relationship between earning a certificate and students’ post-college earnings and employment status.

This paper reports findings from a researcher-practitioner partnership that assessed the readiness for postsecondary reading and writing demands of 211 students in developmental reading and English courses in two community colleges.

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.