Whole-College Guided Pathways Reform Practices: Scale of Adoption by Community Colleges in Three States

Guided pathways is arguably the most widespread whole-college community college reform movement in decades. In this report, the authors present findings from a study on the scale of adoption of guided pathways practices across community and technical colleges in three states—Ohio, Tennessee, and Washington—where there are state-level efforts to support adoption among colleges system-wide. These findings are based on an institutional survey developed and administered to these colleges in 2022 to more precisely measure the scale at which they have adopted guided pathways model practices. By May 2022, only a minority of colleges in each of the states had adopted at least one practice at scale from each of the four guided pathways practice areas. Most commonly, colleges adopted a few practices at scale across one or more practice areas, while other practices were still in the process of being scaled. Many colleges had put guided pathways reforms on hold because of the COVID pandemic. There is evidence, however, that most colleges in the three states are now continuing to scale guided pathways reforms. This report provides an interim look at a reform movement that will continue to play out in these and other states for several years to come.