Publications

This updated fact sheet outlines challenges in supporting successful student transfer from community colleges to four-year institutions and considerations for improving the transfer process.

In this updated fact sheet, CCRC offers a short primer on the multiple missions of community colleges, what kinds of students they enroll, what outcomes they produce, and some of the major issues they face.

This practice guide builds on the work of colleges in the Unlocking Opportunity Network by offering practical strategies that can help more students graduate with credentials that lead directly to good jobs or transfer and successful attainment of a bachelor’s degree.

This report discusses the program choice process among 42 student interviewees; it describes factors that influenced their choice and how their choice often changed, and it offers recommendations to better support students in selecting a program.

Based on survey findings from 480 former students who stopped out of community college before the start of their second year, this report sheds light on the experiences of this population and their reasons for leaving college.

Drawing on survey and interview data, this article describes what students want from their dual enrollment experiences and implications for college and K-12 leaders working to strengthen their dual enrollment programming.

This report describes strategies for providing purposeful dual enrollment, which better guides underserved students into degree- and career-connected education after high school, without shifting the cost burden onto students and families.

Using data from Texas, this report examines how students combine different types of accelerated coursetaking in high school and how these combinations are associated with students’ subsequent postsecondary attainment and earnings trajectories.

Using administrative data from a large, urban, public college system, this paper documents large gaps in earnings five years after graduation by SES and the extent to which differences in the first job transition can explain these gaps.

This book chapter examines the role of community colleges in higher education and discusses enrollment trends and student characteristics and outcomes. The authors synthesize research on reforms intended to improve student outcomes and conclude with new directions for research and practice.

Using survey data from incoming students at four colleges, this report examines how they think about choosing a program of study, how well their educational and career goals align, and implications for colleges seeking to better support students’ decision-making.

Based on faculty and staff interviews at four colleges, this brief describes how students experience the program choice process, including barriers they face, and discusses practices for improving support for program and career exploration.

This paper documents the annual costs associated with six common community college success strategies; overall costs, the distribution of costs, and costs per student, as well as how costs are borne by various actors are identified.

Drawing on a decade of research on whole-college guided pathways reforms, this book presents five next-frontier strategies colleges can use to strengthen pathways to post-completion student success in jobs and further education.

This discussion guide for More Essential Than Ever is designed to help community college faculty, staff, and administrators discuss ideas presented in the book and consider which might be most helpful for improving student success at their institutions.

In this AIED conference paper, the authors evaluate four text alignment strategies based on large language learning models (LLMs) or traditional natural language processing (NLP) for skill extraction, a core task in curricular analytics.

Using a regression discontinuity approach and data from two cohorts of students in one state, this paper examines the effect of taking dual enrollment credits on the number of in-state public colleges students apply and are admitted to and the selectivity of those colleges.

This CAPR brief provides an overview of corequisite course models at three CUNY colleges and, using student focus group data, describes three factors that improved students’ experiences with corequisites and three factors that presented challenges for students.

This ARCC Network brief examines two statewide workforce-focused initiatives, G3 and GO Virginia. The authors present a snapshot of how these initiatives interact on the ground and describe opportunities for more deliberate and strategic efforts to better align their goals and investments.

Using interview data from program leaders and statewide student data, this paper examines the implementation and estimates the effects of Ohio’s Innovative Programs, a policy aimed at expanding access to dual enrollment for underserved high school students.

Using administrative data from Ohio, this Third Way brief compares master’s degree completers’ earnings before and after graduate school and finds that, on average, earning a master’s degree increases earnings, though returns vary by field and student demographics.

Using nine terms of outcomes data, this CAPR working paper presents findings from an impact study on multiple measures assessment at seven State University of New York (SUNY) community colleges.

This working paper describes dual enrollment (DE) high school–college partnerships and estimates which DE structures and contexts predict aggregate DE course completion, college enrollment, and degree attainment.

Using two quasi-experimental methods, this paper estimates the causal impact of Virginia’s Get a Skill, Get a Job, Get Ahead initiative on financial aid and academic outcomes of community college students.

This report uses IPEDS and College Scorecard data to classify the credentials awarded by community colleges in 2022-23 and to assess which credentials are and are not likely to enable students to secure a living-wage job or transfer efficiently in a major.

The second edition of the Transfer Playbook provides guidance for achieving excellence in transfer and bachelor’s attainment for community college students based on practices observed at exemplary community college and university partnerships.

Informed by a recent project to scale MMA throughout the state of Arkansas, this CAPR brief describes the state’s policy context, summarizes adoption efforts, and presents five strategies for other states that want to scale assessment reform.

This Postsecondary Teaching with Technology Collaborative brief examines how students develop and use self-directed learning (SDL) skills—motivational, metacognitive, and applied learning processes that enable them to sustain effort, reflect on progress, set goals, and adapt their study strategies.

This Center on Poverty and Social Policy working paper estimates the incremental long-run benefits and costs of participation in CUNY’s Accelerate, Complete, and Engage program, aimed at increasing bachelor’s completion rates.

This CAPR report draws on interview data with faculty and staff to examine how seven City University of New York colleges transitioned to fully scaled corequisite courses in English and math and the implications of their choices for early implementation.

This journal article describes the design of the Caring Campus–Faculty program, presents findings from four years of research on important practices and outcomes, and describes implementation experiences at one college that adopted the program.

This journal article reviews evidence on adult learners taking online courses, describes online teaching practices that draw on a self-directed learning skills framework, and outlines an evidence-based embedded coaching program that improves student outcomes.

Using NSC data, this report presents national and state-by-state findings on the postsecondary enrollment and completion outcomes of high school students who began taking dual enrollment college courses in fall 2015, tracked for four years after high school.

Based on focus group interviews with predominantly Black, Hispanic, and low-income students, this brief examines the experiences of students historically underserved in dual enrollment to understand what these students want from their programs and the educators who lead them.

Using administrative data, this paper analyzes Get a Skill, Get a Job, Get Ahead (G3)—a free community college initiative that Virginia implemented in 2021—and shows that both institutions and students responded to the tuition-free messaging and eligibility criteria.

This program classification guidebook and accompanying data analysis and visualization tools from the Aspen Institute and CCRC can be useful for community colleges seeking to increase the number of students in high-value programs and decrease the number in lower value pathways.

This ARCC Network brief uses enrollment and outcome data as well as interview data from eight colleges implementing the Get A Skill, Get A Job, Get Ahead (G3) program to examine college-level G3 outreach, recruitment, and enrollment strategies and the process for awarding G3 aid.

In this Call to Action, CCRC shares five insights from a recent symposium on the role community colleges can play in addressing climate change, with the goal of supporting work currently underway and galvanizing further efforts to prepare workers for the green economy.

This article introduces “dual enrollment equity pathways” (DEEP)—a research-based framework for rethinking à la carte dual enrollment as a more equitable on-ramp to college programs of study that lead to high-opportunity career paths for students historically underserved in dual enrollment.

Using clickstream data from five online courses, this article presents preliminary findings from a rapid-cycle evaluation testing the use of videos and prompts as technology-supported instructional strategies designed to improve self-regulated learning in online classrooms.

This book chapter explores the personal support networks and help-seeking preferences of immigrant-origin, first-generation-in-college students (FGCS) as part of a three-year longitudinal mixed-methods study with FGCSs at four public Hispanic-serving institutions in California.

This book chapter explores the personal support networks and help-seeking preferences of immigrant-origin, first-generation-in-college students (FGCS) as part of a three-year longitudinal mixed-methods study with FGCSs at four public Hispanic-serving institutions in California.

This fact sheet describes the growth of dual enrollment, the various models and funding mechanisms, and steps colleges and high schools can take to make dual enrollment more equitable.

This Postsecondary Teaching with Technology Collaborative report examines how faculty and staff at nine institutions reconsidered students’ online learning needs in the midst of the pandemic, and it explores how supports were offered to help students strengthen their self-directed learning skills.

This Postsecondary Teaching with Technology Collaborative brief discusses some of the challenges with online teaching reported by STEM instructors, describes a self-directed learning (SDL) framework to address these challenges, and highlights support strategies that can be integrated into teaching practices.

This journal article analyzes how choice proliferation and information inequity in higher education join to produce and legitimate educational inequality, and it offers detailed recommendations on how to reduce this inegalitarian impact.

This Annenberg Institute working paper examines the relationship between community college students’ academic persistence and their time utilization, engagement with campus resources, and financial and mental well-being, as well as the relative importance of these factors for students’ educational attainment.

This paper describes research that prompted developmental education reform, explores efforts in California that led to the passing of A.B. 705, summarizes research on its implementation and outcomes, and discusses the implications of this research for improving postsecondary access and success.

This brief discusses findings and implications from two recent large studies of guided pathways that examined the scale at which colleges have implemented reforms and the association between adopted practices and early student outcomes.

Using institutional survey and administrative data, this paper examines the association between statewide adoption of guided pathways practices by community colleges in Tennessee, Ohio, and Washington and improvements in first-year student outcomes.