This document provides an overview of historic policy reforms that have improved student success and close racial equity gaps in completion at California Community Colleges.

Purpose: The purpose of this systematic literature review is to examine policy and practice recommendations, along with calls for future research, aimed at addressing food insecurity for community colleges across the U.S. Argument/Proposed Model: This article will provide a detailed methodology for the systematic literature review, as well as the…

This chapter discusses an innovative state public policy which has incentivized Iowa's community colleges to become the economic drivers of their region. Created in the 1983 legislation, it continues to this day to affect Iowa's rural communities and their colleges.

Recent policy changes like AB 705 and 1705 have drastically changed curriculum, course offerings, and placement practices in community college ESL departments across California (Rodriguez, et al., 2022; Shaw, et al., 2018). Though many large-scale studies have examined transfer, completion and throughput rates (David & Kanno, 2021; Hayward, et…

Economic development theory focuses on a country's human capital development which is its greatest resource. Human capital development is the empowerment of citizens which comes through education and training. A major player in this process is Community colleges which its mandate is to bridge the skills gap and attend to the academic needs of its…

The story of a mass shooting occurring on the place of school seems to be a common one in contemporary American cultural narrative. One of the more controversial solutions offered within this narrative is allowing citizens to protect themselves through the practice of conceal and carry. The practice of legally allowing individuals to conceal and…

The Biden Administration expects to resettle 95,000 Afghan evacuees in communities across the United States by September 2022. Some evacuees come to the United States with strong English proficiency and years of experience working as entrepreneurs or community leaders or for the United States military. Others, especially women, have had limited…

The article is an analysis which focuses on the years after the Great Recession, to show the interplay between federal and state policies. The first year after American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) federal stimulus funds ended, Fiscal Year (FY) 2012, coincided with new federal Pell Grant eligibility restrictions. State appropriations for…

A new wave of federal legislation is drastically affecting how community colleges create and deliver programs in career and technical education (CTE). A key focus area shared by these federal policy changes is program-to-labor market alignment in which community colleges must utilize local labor market data to tailor their CTE programs to meet the…

Food Stamp work requirements for college students date back to the 1960s and '70s when public perception fueled the belief that students from middle- and upper-income families, who should support them, were taking advantage of government. This was coupled with a belief that students had made themselves "voluntarily idle" by removing…

During the 2016 campaign, President Trump promised to establish numerous anti-immigration policies, which heightened undocumented students' fears and anxieties. The present longitudinal qualitative study investigated seven undocumented students' socioemotional states and whether administrators and educators provided sustained positive validation…

As interest in reducing the nation's incarceration rates grows, a shift in policy in favor of education for incarcerated individuals is occurring. This article focuses on the expansive role that community colleges have in offering educational opportunities to individuals in both jails and prisons around the country. This article provides an…

This study uses Critical Discourse Analysis through a Critical Race Theory lens to analyze grant applications of community colleges that applied for funding to build or support programs for justice-impacted students. I analyze how colleges problem-frame the need for their program, finding that 'colleges' use of race-evasive and ahistorical…

Most of international students who migrate to the U.S. or to other parts of the world to pursue their education go through many challenges that hinder their academic performance. U.S. HEIs might not achieve international student access and completion goals without identifying the "challenges that face minority and international students"…

In 2022, the Center for the Study of Social Policy and Project SPARC conducted research to better understand the barriers experienced by parenting students participating in CalWORKs, California's cash assistance program for families with children. This brief highlights findings from the research about parenting students' experiences navigating…