In this chapter, we describe efforts by growing number of colleges and universities to redesign academic programs and support services to create "guided pathways" designed to increase the rate at which students enter and complete a program of study.

This guide is intended to help community college leaders understand the costs involved in implementing guided pathways reforms and develop plans for funding and sustaining them. It is based on research at six institutions that have implemented large-scale changes based on the guided pathways model, which focuses on supporting students to enter and…

This paper presents the findings from a follow-up quantitative analysis of the Community College of Baltimore County's Accelerated Learning Program (ALP). The results suggest that among students who enroll in the highest level developmental writing course, participation in ALP is associated with substantially better outcomes in terms of English…

This paper presents the findings from a quantitative analysis of the Community College of Baltimore County's Accelerated Learning Program (ALP). Under ALP, students placed into upper-level developmental writing are "mainstreamed" into English 101 classes and simultaneously enrolled in a companion ALP course (taught by the same…

Discussions of the barriers to completion in community colleges have largely focused on student success in introductory college-level math and English courses, and rightfully so, since these courses are typically required for degrees. However, there is a much broader range of courses that also serve as "gatekeepers" in the sense that they are…

Amid growing signs of America's weakening position in the global economy, federal and state policymakers and major foundations have set ambitious goals for increasing postsecondary attainment in the United States. Given changing U.S. demographics, it has become clear that these national goals are attainable only with vastly improved outcomes among…

In 2003, Lumina Foundation for Education launched a bold, multiyear, national initiative called "Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count," to help students stay in school and succeed. The initiative is focused particularly on students who have faced the most barriers to success, including low-income students and students of color.…

Research has consistently shown that older students--those who enter college for the first time at age 25 or older--are less likely to complete a degree or certificate. The authors estimate a single-risk discrete-time hazard model using transcript data on a cohort of first-time community college students in Florida to compare the educational…

Most of the models developed to examine student persistence and attainment in postsecondary education largely fail to account for the influence of institutional factors, particularly when attendance is observed at multiple institutions. Multi-institutional attendance is common for students who begin at a community college, but until now an…

The Virginia Community College System (VCCS) is engaged in a strategic planning process to improve performance beyond the goals in "Dateline 2009," the system's current vision and plan. A key objective is to encourage colleges to improve retention and academic success for students, particularly the substantial numbers who arrive…

Despite the prevalence of student success courses at community colleges, little research has been conducted on their effectiveness. The research described in this brief is an initial attempt to fill that gap. This brief thus reports the recent findings of an in-depth Community College Research Center (CCRC) study on the relationship between…

There has been little research on institutional effectiveness at community colleges. A key challenge is how to compare colleges that serve students with widely varying characteristics. Using transcript-level data on over 150,000 Florida community college students, we estimated the effect on the graduation, transfer, and persistence rates of…

To increase the rate at which adult basic skills students advance to and succeed in college-level occupational programs, the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC) developed the Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training, or I-BEST. In the I-BEST model, a basic skills instructor and an occupational instructor team…

This brief summarizes a Community College Research Center (CCRC) study on the extent to which community college students' educational goals and reasons for enrolling influence their outcomes. Based on the findings, the brief presents suggestions for how colleges should approach student goals and aspirations in seeking to improve student success.…

The goal of this study is to determine the institutional characteristics that affect the success of community college students as measured by the individual student probability of completing a certificate or degree or transferring to a baccalaureate institution. While there is extensive research on the institutional determinants of educational…