The nation's community colleges play a central role in producing a more educated workforce and promoting social mobility. They serve about 40 percent of all college students and, not surprisingly, they serve a disproportionate number of low-income and underrepresented students. But most students who enter these colleges do not graduate--only about…

Learning communities have been a part of the higher educational landscape since the 1980s. Despite their widespread use, research regarding their effectiveness with enhancing retention is sparse. This study describes a freshmen curricular learning community linking courses required for all business majors. Retention for students taking courses in…

Strides toward Native American self-governance and determination have led to significant initiatives designed to protect and preserve community traditional practice and participation. A specific focus of this paper examines potential factors that affect Native American students' post-college aspirations with respect to participation and support…

Perhaps if we had a better understanding between the relationships among indicators of success in college, college student self-efficacy and participation in programs that help students succeed in college, we could improve success rates and persistence in post-secondary education. This mixed methods study sheds light on the relationship among…

The Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin, the developer of the Dana Center Mathematics Pathways (DCMP) model, initiated the Mathematics Pathways to Completion (MPC) project to support each of six states in developing a broad statewide vision for mathematics pathways and a plan for institutional implementation of the DCMP…

Many community colleges consider non-academic supports as a way to improve student retention and achievement. Past studies on the effects of coaching, mentoring, advising, and other non-academic supports yielded evidence for the effectiveness of these interventions to promote student outcomes. In addition, some suggested that the effects were…

The community college student population has been found to be less academically prepared than their four-year counterparts. This relatively at-risk group is argued to struggle with academic motivation in the college setting. Researchers studying student implicit theories of intelligence have found that students who struggle in academia may do so…

Most community college students in the U.S. must complete at least one developmental class, such as elementary algebra, before they can enroll in a college-level mathematics course. Increasingly common in such courses is the use of a web-based activity and testing system (WATS). This report presents initial results of a mixed-methods study of…

This report documents the impacts three years after random assignment for the Pathways to Healthcare program, operated by Pima Community College and Pima County One Stop in Tucson, Arizona. The program aimed to help low-income, low-skilled adults access and complete occupational training that could lead to increased employment and higher earnings.…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of proactive student-success coaching, informed by predictive analytics, on student academic performance and persistence. Specifically, semester GPA and semester-to-semester student persistence were the investigated outcomes. Uniquely, the community college focused the intervention on only…

Educators, policymakers, and institutions have worked for decades to increase rates of college graduation, but about half of students who enter college drop out without completing a bachelor's degree. Although the rate of student attrition is higher in the United States than in any other industrialized nation, about 30% of U.S. students will drop…

Community college students face special challenges that can impede their academic progress, resulting in lower grades and persistence than students in selective four-year colleges. Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, New York, successfully addresses these challenges with learning communities: small cohorts of students in a blocked program…

The National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Urban College (UC) Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) program was designed to comprehensively support academically talented low-income students. The program served 45 students between the fall semesters of 2012 and 2015. The primary goals of the program were…

Many community colleges offer a "student success" course--also known as College 101 or Introduction to College--as a means to help incoming students transition to college and become successful. The typical course is meant to provide key information and address important non-cognitive skills and behavioral expectations with the goal of…

This study extends and makes unique methodological contributions to research on the impact of learning communities (LCs) on community college students. Much of the previous research was short-term, lacked adequate comparison groups, and focused on four-year college students. This four-year study controlled for instructor-related variables by…