Publications

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.

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.

This CAPR report highlights the roles of key actors and of state context and policy in the implementation of multiple measures assessment (MMA) at 12 two- and four-year colleges in Arkansas and Texas. It also discusses costs and describes challenges, such as obtaining staff buy-in, managing student data, and ensuring sufficient staffing.

Using financial data from IPEDS, this ARCC Network brief examines what happened to community college revenue and student aid during the pandemic and assesses the importance of Higher Education Emergency Relief (HEER) funding for community colleges and their students.

This Annenberg Institute working paper provides up-to-date causal evidence on labor market returns to master’s degrees and examines heterogeneity in the returns by field area, student demographics, and initial labor market conditions.

This ARCC Network report examines how Higher Education Emergency Relief (HEER) funds were distributed to community colleges and the extent to which the colleges spent those funds. It also explores how HEER funding and spending patterns differed by institutional and student characteristics.

These two reports use student data disaggregated by race/ethnicity, neighborhood income, and age to measure the performance of two- and four-year institutions in enabling students who start college at a community college to transfer and complete bachelor’s programs. State-by-state breakdowns of transfer metrics designed for use by college and state system leaders are included in the reports and in an online data dashboard.

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.

Informed by findings from The Dual Enrollment Playbook and site visits to Title I high schools and their community college partners in Texas and Florida, this report offers guidance for state leaders on how to support practitioner efforts to broaden the benefits of dual enrollment.

This brief, published by The Campaign for College Opportunity, explores ways transfer reform can close equity gaps in bachelor’s degree attainment by providing vital degree pathways for students from minoritized backgrounds.

Using administrative data from CUNY, this brief explores the role that community colleges play in contributing to degrees awarded in education, and it considers how the transfer experience for students interested in pursuing careers as teachers can be improved.

This report argues that a more inclusive definition of STEM that accounts for STEM-oriented technical training programs would better represent the contribution community colleges make to STEM education and the STEM workforce.

The brief, published by The Campaign for College Opportunity, summarizes the research on dual enrollment programs and offers policymakers a strategy to increase college enrollment and attainment via such efforts.

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 CAPR brief describes findings and implications of an evaluation study of multiple measures assessment (MMA); it focuses on results among students whose placements changed (or would have changed) under MMA.

Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data, this report presents findings from research on humanities coursetaking at Michigan community colleges conducted as part of the Strengthening Michigan Humanities project.

This report presents the dual enrollment equity pathways (DEEP) framework, which aims to expand access to dual enrollment and redesign practices so that underserved students can use it to pursue a high-value postsecondary degree program directly after high school.

This report describes dual enrollment equity pathways (DEEP) reforms implemented by six community college–K-12 partnerships in Florida and Texas, and it provides insights and guidance for other colleges and schools interested in undertaking DEEP reforms.

Drawing on administrative records from transfer-intending community college starters across three states, this paper develops a set of early STEM momentum metrics that are useful indicators of subsequent STEM transfer and bachelor’s degree attainment.

Based on interview, focus group, observational, and student survey data, this CAPR brief presents findings on the design and implementation of corequisite developmental courses at four colleges, and it highlights lessons for other colleges.

Drawing on interviews as well as self-assessment and performance data, this report discusses what the AACC Pathways colleges have accomplished in their guided pathways reforms over the past seven years and what they have learned about institutional transformation.

This brief details advice from leaders—including college presidents, senior administrators, faculty, and staff֫— who were involved in planning, overseeing, or coordinating guided pathways reforms at the 30 colleges that participated in the AACC Pathways Project.

Based on institutional survey data, this report presents findings from a study on the scale of adoption of guided pathways practices at community and technical colleges in Ohio, Tennessee, and Washington State.

This report uses IPEDS data to better understand healthcare training programs and the current role that community colleges play in training healthcare workers, including public health workers.

This ARCC Network brief describes Higher Education Emergency Relief funding the federal government provided to community colleges, and it provides a first look at how much funding was awarded to and spent by the colleges through February 2023.