To better understand the challenges and opportunities facing community colleges that want to expand apprenticeship opportunities to their students, New America conducted a year-long study. We created an advisory committee to guide this work and spoke to apprenticeship, workforce development, and community college leaders about the community…

The United States is currently experiencing a decline of skilled talent in the workforce, with healthcare occupations suffering the most due to a loss in workforce talent and the onset of an aging population. This talent shortage is attributed to a "skills gap." The current case study used qualitative methodology to examine the expansion…

The Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB) is pleased to share this fifth publication in a series of informational briefings developed as part of The Guardians Initiative: Reclaiming the Public Trust, an effort to educate and engage trustees as advocates on key issues in higher education. The U.S. higher education…

Across the United States, a growing number of colleges are redesigning their programs and student support services according to the "guided pathways" model. Central to this approach are efforts to clarify pathways to program completion, career advancement, and further education. Equally essential are efforts to help students explore…

This summary is a digest of key findings from "Implementing Guided Pathways: Early Insights From the AACC Pathways Colleges," a report based on Community College Research Center's (CCRC's) research on the 30 colleges involved in the American Association of Community Colleges' (AACC) Pathways Project. The research presented in this report…

Every adolescent faces challenges as they navigate their teenage years, but for some these challenges imperil their ability to complete their education. While these four students' experiences are dramatically different, they have one thing in common: high school didn't work for them, meaning that each faced long odds of ever attaining a diploma,…

Place-building theory, originally developed to assess corporate social responsibility, explains to what degree an organization values and invests in its geographical and social location. Different lines of inquiry--descriptive, evaluative, and prescriptive--elucidate how the organization values place, which in turn suggests its type, its…

This report provides an overview of developmental education, describes the current policy environment, examines innovations at Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs), and considers the implications for students and the national college completion agenda. While some states have moved away from racial/ethnic access and equity goals, MSIs have an…

The authors assert that higher education has a significant role to play in the reinvigoration of American democracy, and that narrow specialization of academic interests, technocratic practices and assumptions, and privatizing values throughout colleges and universities limit the ability of higher education to play this role. These dynamics also…

As the United States moves toward becoming a "minority-majority" country, what more can--and should--college presidents and governing boards do to provide low-income students and students of color with a pipeline to high-quality education? Ongoing discourse about shifting demographics locally and nationally must be built into…

Traditionally, universities focus primarily on instructionist teaching. Such an understanding has been criticized from theoretical and practical points of view. We believe that "socio-cultural theories of learning" and the concepts of "social capital" and "social creativity" hold considerable promise as a theoretical…

In support of a legislative evaluation of the degree to which Colorado's institutions of higher education should be accessible to the state's citizens, this paper reviews the barriers to student access and outlines the position of the Colorado State Board for Community Colleges and Occupational Education regarding the role of the community…

The role of Colorado community colleges in preparing people for a more productive role in society is discussed by a representative of the Colorado State Board for Community Colleges and Occupational Education. The following problems are identified: the increasing costs of providing quality education, and financial problems within the state's rural…

The 27-member Blue Ribbon Community College Study Commission, representing a variety of groups within the educational community, assessed the effects of the statutes, goals, policies, and practices under which Colorado community colleges have operated with the purpose of recommending needed changes with respect to the following ten years. Through…

The organizational and working relationships between postsecondary education and economic development in selected states were investigated, with emphasis on identifying state-level coordinated programs in 12 geographically diverse states known to be active in linking education to economic development (Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Louisiana,…