The flexibility of labor-based contract grading allowed students in the study to make strategic, intentional, autonomous choices about the types of labor and products they produced. This strategic decision-making helped them to balance the workload requirements of their other classes, employment, and personal issues and laid important groundwork…

Developmental education is the most common approach used by community colleges to assist underprepared students for college-level course work. Yet there is limited evidence regarding this strategy on students assigned to the lowest level of the developmental sequence. This paper extends current knowledge on this critical question by examining the…

Student attrition has been a significant challenge facing higher education for decades and is particularly pronounced within community colleges. Specifically, first-time postsecondary students only experienced a 59.3 percent retention rate between Fall 2013 and Fall 2014; at two-year colleges, less than half (46.9 percent) of students were…

This author organized and taught the new ENG 09/111 classes at her college, as well as authoring the course text and workbook. English 09/111 offers a unique opportunity for students who are not quite ready for freshmen composition, but more than likely do not need an entire semester of developmental English. In this article, she details the…

Dual enrollment programs continue to grow in the United States; however, little empirical research examines the relationship between this high school experience and future college success and degree attainment. This study examines degree attainment for first-time beginning students who began their postsecondary education at a Virginia Community…

This report summarizes key findings and recommendations from a Community College Research Center (CCRC) study designed to help community colleges develop strategies for improving the rate at which academically underprepared students take and pass initial college-level (or "gatekeeper") courses in math and English. CCRC conducted the…

Transfer articulation is an important policy issue in Virginia. With increasing economic strains on federal and state budgets, pressure on key actors in higher education, and critical teacher shortages, an opportunity presented itself to investigate state transfer policy and articulation agreements designed to facilitate student transfer.…

The Virginia Community College System (VCCS) is engaged in a strategic planning process to improve performance beyond the goals in "Dateline 2009," the system's current vision and plan. A key objective is to encourage colleges to improve retention and academic success for students, particularly the substantial numbers who arrive…

Each year more than 572,500 international students enroll in more than 3,300 colleges and universities in the United States. Currently, about 84,000 of these students attend community colleges. Why do so many international students choose to pursue higher education in the United States? First, U.S. colleges and universities welcome and value…