Federal second chance Pell grants were recently made widely available to incarcerated students in the United States to fund undergraduate education. Piedmont Virginia Community College was a pilot site for this expansion and began full scale implementation of transfer-oriented associate degrees at three correctional centers in its service area.…

Funding for community colleges varies significantly, even within the same state. Several factors account for these differences, including more generous funding for smaller institutions to compensate for their higher costs per student, unequal local funding from property tax revenues, and political forces. In theory, this variation could lead to…

Community colleges offer a variety of workforce-oriented programs intended to help students gain skills and knowledge for a specific career or occupation. Among these are short-term credentials, designed to teach students a specific skillset related to an occupation, often in response to local labor market needs. Types of short-term credentials…

The data contained in this report provide new connective tissue and insight into students' lives and the ways in which their financial concerns coincide with their academic work and their ability to succeed. The report focuses on the financial health of community college students, including their perceptions of their current financial…

This report shares the perspectives and aspirations of 17 low-income and working-class students based on interviews the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) conducted over two semesters of their college journeys. The report identifies opportunities for policymakers and institutional leaders to support all students through completion,…

This study examined the use of education tax credits at four community colleges using data from the Federal Quality Assurance Program in 1998, the first year of the HOPE Scholarship and Lifetime Learning Tax Credit (LLTC). Preliminary estimates indicated that the two tax credits were expected to primarily benefit middle-income tax filers with…