With nearly half the states having authorized community colleges to award baccalaureate degrees, the community college baccalaureate (CCB) has become an increasingly common feature of the landscape of American higher education. While there has been an expansion of research on the CCB in recent years, the research to date consists mainly of studies…

This chapter provides individual and institutional strategies for confronting the historical challenges facing community college faculty, especially the prestige model, mission ambiguity, and declining resources.

In this dissertation, I present an examination of the economics of education through three chapters. In the first paper, I study the overrepresentation of elite university graduates in senior positions in public administration. Using rich administrative data from Chile, I employ a stacked fuzzy regression discontinuity design to estimate the…

Transferring to a prestigious university offers the possibility of opening doors to more opportunities and may attract transfer students, yet less is known about transfer students' experiences with prestigious institutions. In our qualitative study at a highly selective institution with transfer students who identified as low income, from a…

Community colleges, known for their open access and inclusion, have seen consistent enrollment declines for several years. At Outward Flats Community College, the research setting in this study, student enrollment has consistently declined and a widening admission yield gap between students of color and white students occurred. The researcher…

There has been growing national political interest in promoting community college education as a way of improving economic opportunities for disadvantages members of local workforces. Recent work mainly focuses on human capital gains, but few studies have investigated how community college credentials can affect the level of job prestige…

A review of the literature revealed the need to further explore continuing-generation college students attending community colleges. This case study sought to understand the choice process of continuing-generation, direct-entry college students who enrolled in Miami Dade College (MDC), a baccalaureate community college. This research was planned…

Institutions of higher learning today rely on tuition dollars to function. During a time when the pool of high school graduates is shrinking, colleges and universities must look to alternative target markets to meet enrollment goals, including those transferring from community college. Community college transfers have unique attributes that…

Purpose: This study empirically investigates the influence of students' brand attitudes and perceptions of brand fit on their study intention vis-à-vis international brand alliances and individual brands after alliance. Design/methodology/approach: Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used in data analysis, and a questionnaire was administered…

Leaders in four-year, public and private institutions have implemented international branch campuses to potentially increase revenue and promote institutional prestige. Although these efforts have received significant attention, they have not always been successful. Studies have identified the reputational risks often associated with international…

Using archival records preserved by Iowa's community colleges, private four-year colleges, and public universities, this dissertation examines how Iowa's established higher education institutions responded to and adjusted to the "presence" of new two-year colleges from 1965 to 1975. This decade was a critical period of development for…

This qualitative case study uses Wartman's (2014) Guiding Principles for High Level Searches to investigate the executive selection process. The study explores how members of the search committee, governing board, and search consultant perceive the method a community college used to select its permanent president. To examine the process, one…

The concept of branding holds the key to achieving organizational goals by determining the needs and wants of target markets (Nicolescu, 2009). The brand of a community college is influenced by the interactions these individuals have on campus or in public with college administrators, faculty, and staff (Black, 2008). As a result it is imperative…

The purpose of the research was to discover the views of three groups of International students who were undertaking their Higher Education (HE) in a publicly-funded college, rather than a university setting. A comparative survey was undertaken by International students attending an American Community College, an Australian Technical and Further…

I examine what the characteristics of competitive community colleges are and how the ranking systems identify the ideal qualities of community colleges through a comparison of community colleges to prestigious four-year institutions. I provide information regarding the institutional differences and the characteristics of top-ranked community…