While data on enrollment, performance, persistence, and completion can offer directional information about access and success for different student groups, they do not provide the "why" behind these measures. Asking students directly about their experiences at the institution can help with a more comprehensive understanding of how to…

Single mother students represent a significant proportion of the student body at community colleges. Thus, the purpose of this article is to examine the experiences of single mother students enrolled in community colleges across the United States and identify ways that administrators, faculty, and staff can foster their academic persistence. The…

Communities continue to establish, promote, and monitor the educational outcomes of their citizenry through both explicit and implied norms. Community attributes influence the pursuit of education and level of education completed by individual citizens. The influencers within communities can be attributed to common constructs of communities…

The five-paragraph essay is highly controversial, and yet it has also been a useful format for composition. In this essay we explain why, despite its limits, students need to go along with the format to make what use and get what advantage of it. We then demonstrate that valuing the philosophical, historical, cultural, and educational backgrounds…

In this chapter, the author examines the extent to which community colleges invite students to share their sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) data, and the barriers to collecting such data. The author also underscores the important role that higher education professionals, particularly those in institutional research, can play in…

With the implementation of AB 705 in fall 2019, California Community Colleges began to transition to a majority of students' first English and math enrollment starting at transfer level. Research has shown that with the vast increase in access to transfer-level courses, the one-year completion rate of a transfer-level course (i.e., throughput)…

This paper reports on a writing programme I started at Bronx Community College to improve academic success among recently immigrated Spanish-speaking students by linking ESL courses to Spanish academic literacy courses within the framework of a learning community. My reflection begins by articulating the pedagogical rationale for looking beyond…

This paper provides an introductory examination of a unique niche in higher education: Military Community Colleges. Through an overview that highlights the characteristics of the four military community colleges, it discusses the benefits of attending military community colleges and provides implications for practice, policy, and research; this…

This chapter presents an initial inquiry about students who take student success courses with a Latinx focus at two California community colleges, one with an HSI designation and one without.

Learning communities (LCs) provide an ideal context for civic learning because they foreground the integrative and interactive nature of learning and skills development. While the academic benefits of LCs have been well documented, their potential to promote civic learning and engagement has received less attention. Indeed, the potential of LCs to…

Community colleges have an opportunity to promote achievement of more science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students and meet larger goals of scientific advancement and educational equity. Understanding community college students' needs and backgrounds is key to increasing students' success in STEM fields and realizing this…

Partial LGBTQ+ assimilation into mainstream culture has changed how practitioners interact with students at suburban community colleges. This chapter reviews the history of the Chicago suburbs and reflects on the authors' experiences working with LGBTQ+ students in community colleges there.

After decades of frustration with increasingly complex college financial aid policies, a nationwide shift toward "free college" programs has gained momentum. New York State joined the free college movement in 2017, when Governor Andrew Cuomo announced his goal to make public higher education tuition-free for most students during his…

A typical pattern occurs in community colleges where students must enroll in developmental coursework before beginning college-level classes. As a result, these students often struggle and face a lack of academic success. To better understand the experience of first-year college students enrolled in developmental courses at community colleges,…

Many community college entrants, attracted by these institutions' variety of academic offerings and low cost, intend to earn a baccalaureate degree but never transfer to a four-year institution. A growing number of researchers seek to understand transfer patterns and behavior, but they often overlook some student groups, including those who…