As colleges and universities continue to navigate the longer-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, a wealth of knowledge and insights exists within many community colleges to inform how to best prepare students for the fast-changing demands of learning, work, and life. Using a strengths-based approach and interviews with students from three large…

Developmental education (dev-ed) aims to help students acquire knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in college-level coursework. The traditional prerequisite approach to postsecondary dev-ed--where students take remedial courses that do not count toward a credential--appears to stymie progress toward a degree. At community colleges across the…

"Free college" programs are widespread in American higher education. They are discussed as addressing college access, affordability, inequality, and skills shortages. Many are last-dollar tuition guarantees restricted to use at single community colleges. Using student-level data spanning the transition to college, we investigate how two…

Despite decades and hundreds of billions of dollars of federal and state investment in policies to promote postsecondary educational attainment as a key lever for increasing the economic mobility of lower income populations, research continues to show large and meaningful differences in the mid-career earnings of students from families in the…

Background: Instructors often use a point-based system for grading students (e.g., 100 or 1000 total points). This system can impact student outcomes. Objective: The purpose of this research was to examine the implications of different point value courses for student emotions, perceptions of courses, and classroom performance. Method: The…

In fall 2016, CAPR began a randomized controlled trial of multiple measures assessment (MMA) in community colleges in the State University of New York (SUNY) to learn whether MMA yields placement determinations that lead to better student outcomes than a system based on test scores alone. In 2020, a report was released on students' outcomes after…

Many public workforce training programs lead to industry-recognized, third-party awarded credentials, but little research has been conducted on the economic benefits of these credentials in the labor market. This paper provides quasi-experimental evidence on the labor market returns to industry-recognized credentials connected to community college…

An increasing body of robust evidence concludes that corequisite remediation in math and English is a cost-effective alternative to traditional developmental education, offering improved immediate course progression and potentially better persistence and completion. This is the first study to disentangle the impacts of the two main elements of the…

In the fall of 2020, ACT and the Mississippi Community College Board (MCCB) entered into a data sharing agreement in order to examine the validity of ACT's® WorkKeys® Assessments. WorkKeys Assessments measure students' foundational workplace skills. The focus of this technical brief is to summarize the results of several validity studies using a…

In a time of increasing economic inequality, lower levels of government investment in higher education, and rising tuition costs, students vying for a college degree experience financial concerns as important influences on their college experience. An emerging body of literature has focused on the relationship between student finances and academic…

This study focuses on the potential academic benefit of virtual international exchange for community colleges and the students they enroll through a comparison of virtual exchange and study abroad. Using data from two community colleges in the US Southeast, this study draws upon the notion of socioacademic integration. Specifically, this study…

Despite decades and hundreds of billions of dollars of federal and state investment in policies to promote postsecondary educational attainment as a key lever for increasing the economic mobility of lower-income populations, research continues to show large and meaningful differences in the mid-career earnings of students from families in the…

Online learning has been increasing rapidly at community colleges, especially in low-division high-demand coursework, such as developmental education. While existing studies have identified negative effects associated with online instruction in semester-long coursework in this particular setting, there is less evidence about how distance learning…

The purpose of this study is to provide robust estimates of the potential link between study abroad participation and community college students' academic outcomes, namely academic qualifications (GPA), progression toward degree (credits passed), and credential completion. Theoretically, study abroad is thought to impact students' outcomes,…

Background or Context: The COVID-19 pandemic may be considered a focusing event that has drawn greater attention to the physical and mental health of community college students. Purpose, Objective, Research Question, or Focus of Study: This study examined community college students' self-reported life stressors pre- and post-pandemic-onset to…