Indiana's economy needs a skilled talent pipeline, which requires students to pursue and complete degrees or credentials that are affordable, high-quality and relevant to students' future careers and the state's economy. It starts with ensuring students have what they need to get their foot in the door. But right now, fewer students are choosing a…

Despite evidence suggesting that standardized tests are an imperfect measure of academic readiness, many community colleges across the country rely on them alone to determine student course placement. However, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced campuses to transition to remote operations in spring 2020, proctoring in-person placement tests became…

Many states are passing "free" college plans, and policymakers at both the state and federal level continue to debate the merits of national "free college" or "debt-free college" proposals, also known as Promise programs. Both federal and state "free" college proposals are geared toward a policy objective of…

This report details findings from focus groups with college students across Indiana. All of these students were planning to transfer or had transferred from the state community college system, Ivy Tech, to a school in the Indiana University system. We wanted to find out what these students had to say about their experiences preparing for and…