My Dissertation in Practice concentrated on sexual assault in community colleges with a focus on a mid-western community college. Sexual assault is a pervasive issue that has plagued higher education for years. The purpose of this quantitative descriptive exploratory research study was to explore students' knowledge and awareness of the policies…

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…

The Suburban Boulevard Community College (SBCC), a pseudonym, has been experiencing a low persistence rate among first-year full-time students. Further, a gap in practice exists where college administrators at the SBCC were not assessing first-year students' level of college readiness as a likely predictor of low persistence. The study was…

Multiple studies show that outcomes, whether they be better degree completion rates or successful short-term workforce training, are negatively affected by inadequate funding (Kahlenberg, 2015). To bolster their case for underfunding, researchers and college advocacy groups produce studies that rely on an important federal dataset--the Integrated…

Community colleges report general opening spring term enrollment figures to the Illinois Community College Board using a brief web-based survey. These figures reflect student enrollments as of the end of registration for the Spring 2022 semester--usually the 10th day of the term. Community colleges in Illinois serve a racially and ethnically…

Using the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) 2012/17 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:12/17), this research study explores the persistence to bachelor's degree attainment of adult students. Specifically, this study looks at adult students who expected to earn a bachelor's degree or higher, and analyzes whether…

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to investigate community college student perceptions of academic advising for 12 first-time first-generation (FTFG) General Studies students attending a rural southeastern community college. The phenomenological research approach was utilized to better understand participant experiences by…

Using data from students and academic advisors at one of the nation's largest community colleges, our qualitative study examined the cost-related implications of efforts to increase full-time enrollment rates. Findings pinpoint several key interrelated financial factors that heavily influence students' assessment of the risk and rewards of…

Community colleges report general opening spring term enrollment figures to the Illinois Community College Board using a brief web based survey. These figures reflect student enrollments as of the end of registration for the Spring 2021 semester--usually the 10th day of the term. Illinois Community Colleges have implemented campus measures to…

Overall, compared to the Spring term one year ago, Illinois Community College System Spring 2023 opening headcount enrollments (+7.2 percent) and full-time equivalent (FTE) enrollments (+6.8 percent) had substantial growth. The opening enrollments reflect the end of the regular spring registration period which is usually the 10th day of class. The…

In this study I deployed quasi-experimental methods to explore enrollment responses to a unique statewide college promise program for adult students attending college within the two-year public postsecondary education sector in Tennessee. State policymakers implemented Tennessee Reconnect in 2018 to encourage adult students without a college…

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…

Education Code section 76002 requires the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office to prepare and submit a report each year on the number of special part-time and special full-time full-time equivalent students (FTES) claimed by each community college district for the preceding academic year in each of the following class categories: (1)…

Community colleges report opening spring term enrollment figures to the Illinois Community College Board using a brief web based survey. These figures reflect student enrollments as of the end of registration for the Spring 2020 semester--usually the 10th day of the term. Overall, compared to the same term one year ago, statewide Spring 2020…

Purpose: The purpose of this journal-ready dissertation was to determine the degree to which the rates of students who did not persist or graduate had changed from the 2014-2015 academic year through the 2019-2020 academic year for first-time in college students by their ethnicity/race (i.e., Hispanic, Black, White, and Asian) and enrollment…