Dual enrollment policies and programs, where students earn both high school and college credits, have been scaled up across the United States in the last two decades. In this mixed methods study, we survey high school principals in Ohio and Texas, two states with robust dual enrollment policies. The study addressed one broad research question:…

Although community colleges have served as a gateway to universities for millions of students--disproportionately so for students from populations historically underrepresented in higher education--prior research has demonstrated that the majority of vertical transfer students lose at least some of their pretransfer credits. However, researchers…

A growing body of research has documented extensive credit loss among transfer students. However, the field lacks theoretically driven and empirically supported frameworks that can guide credit loss research and reforms. We develop and then test a comprehensive framework designed to address this gap using novel administrative credit loss data from…

Following up on an individual-level randomized controlled trial of a Dana Center Math Pathways (DCMP) model, this study assessed longer-term impacts on students' math completion, academic progress, and academic attainment. The version of the DCMP that was assessed in this study diversified the developmental and college-level math course content…

Establishing early academic momentum via credit accumulation is strongly associated with community college student success. Using data from one of the nation's largest and most racially diverse community college systems, our quasi-experimental study examined how different first-semester credit loads influenced persistence. For part-time students…

Perceived social support and stress have been extensively examined in the literature. However, changes in online technology and changing student demographics have brought the question of whether online social support has the same benefits or effects as offline support among college students. The present study examined the role of social support…

With the rapid growth of dual-credit enrollments, it is vital for higher education institutions to understand the needs of dual-credit students, particularly students with learning disabilities. The literature shows a gap in research related to the perceptions of dualcredit students utilizing learning accommodations. The purpose of this…

Delays in meeting math requirements can impede the progress among community college students who aspire to earn a baccalaureate degree. To investigate this issue, we used state administrative data from Texas to examine the prevalence and predictors of math course repetition and how math course repetition predicts transfer students' outcomes. More…

Several states, including Texas, have implemented an "excess semester credit hours (ESCH)" policy. State ESCH policies assess a fee to students at public institutions when they exceed a set number of lifetime cumulative credit hours (e.g. students with more than the 120 credit hours needed for a bachelor's degree). In this article, we…

The majority of community college entrants aspire to earn a bachelor's degree; yet fewer than a third do. States use several strategies to support community college's transfer function, including a transferrable core curriculum, a block of pre-major coursework universally accepted at public postsecondary institutions. In this study, we used…

Dual enrollment (DE)--where students earn college credits during high school--is expanding rapidly. To facilitate DE, institutional actors across K-12 schools and colleges must build or repurpose structures across separate organizations to determine course offerings, assignments, modality, and composition. Yet the organization and implications of…

Objective: Students' enrollment intensity during their first academic semester and year are highly influential in their success and decisions to persist in community college. Limited research, however, has focused on understanding how students navigate the decision-making process of determining their credit load or how institutional support…

This is the first study to provide experimental evidence of the impact of corequisite remediation for students underprepared in reading and writing. We examine the short-term impacts of three different approaches to corequisite remediation that were implemented at five large urban community colleges in Texas, and we explore whether corequisites…

The number of jobs requiring a postsecondary credential has increased in Texas, and jobs requiring only a high school diploma have become rare. For Texas to improve the future of individuals and the state, policymakers and higher education administrators must commit to closing educational gaps. Literature, reports, and studies have demonstrated…

Background: Early Colleges (ECs) are a type of rapidly growing dual enrollment program proven to be successful in helping underrepresented students get a jumpstart on their postsecondary education. To date, the most rigorous evidence on the impact of ECs has come from two lottery-based natural experiments conducted by the SERVE Center (Edmunds et…