During the past several years, the federal and state governments have adopted a college completion agenda using graduation rates as evidence of student success. With the demand for increased accountability on colleges and universities to ensure student success, institutions of higher education are searching for more effective ways to help students…

As of 2023, 43.6 million borrowers owe more than $1.7 trillion in student loan debt. However, there is another, often overlooked, institutional debt that students may owe their former institutions after stopping out. It is estimated that 6.6 million students owe $15 billion in unpaid balances to their institutions. This institutional debt stems…

Although community colleges have served as a gateway to universities for millions of students--disproportionately so for students from populations historically underrepresented in higher education--prior research has demonstrated that the majority of vertical transfer students lose at least some of their pretransfer credits. However, researchers…

State and national initiatives focused on meeting student completion goals have been established for higher education to help produce a stronger workforce and meet economic labor market demands. Some of these initiatives have been centered around improving adult learner enrollment and completion. More adult learners are returning to higher…

This study aimed to assess the impact of increased student interactions with academic advisors on several student success metrics. Conducted at a large, multicampus, community college with more than 34,000 students, it categorized students into three groups based on the frequency of completed advising appointments. Using fall 2022 to spring 2023…

The purpose of this quantitative research study was to determine if differences exist in academic achievement based on student SES as measured by grade point average (GPA), credit hours earned, and completion of the academic year for rural community college students enrolled during the 2018-19 academic year. The study used existing data from a…

The guided pathways model, comprising 14 different practices, is a framework for comprehensive, whole-college reform undertaken by community colleges to help all students choose, enter, progress through, and complete a program of study that enables them to secure sustaining-wage employment or transfer with junior standing in a major. Since its…

Students coming into college lack the basic non-cognitive skills necessary for success in higher education. As a result, many students struggle in their early courses. Most college admissions focus on cognitive measures such as high school grade point averages (GPA) and high-stakes exams; however, these factors alone are not the sole predictors of…

First-year seminar courses have become increasingly popular for colleges and universities as they are expected to help aid in the transition to college and help students persist to graduation (Culver & Bowman, 2020). Utilizing pre-existing data from the Office of Institutional Research Effectiveness and Planning (IREP), the…

Establishing early academic momentum via credit accumulation is strongly associated with community college student success. Using data from one of the nation's largest and most racially diverse community college systems, our quasi-experimental study examined how different first-semester credit loads influenced persistence. For part-time students…

Nationally, reverse credit transfer is a practice of transfer credit. The reverse transfer program at the study site was implemented in 2013, but no information had been analyzed about the experiences of participating students. This study explored students' experiences of the reverse transfer program at the study site. The theory of student…

It is estimated that over a third of college students switch majors at least once (Astorne-Figari & Speer, Economics of Education Review 70:75-93, 2019), but the impact of this switching behavior on students' pathways towards a science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) degree are not well understood. In this study, using panel data from…

This study was to create an understanding of students that were placed on academic probation to assess their shared characteristics in relation to their rate of graduation. To do this, the study group selected was a cohort of students from a ten-year time span who were placed on academic probation at a small university in northwest New Jersey.…

Find insights into college student persistence, progression, and retention with this benchmark report, taken from a survey of college and university officials. These benchmarks can help your institution compare your outcomes for first-time-in-college (FTIC) students as well as transfer students. This report features 12 key benchmarks in three…

This study aimed to evaluate the academic success of traditional undergraduate students in online general education coursework. This quantitative study uses student grades and credit completion data to examine differences between online and face-to-face students and the extent of those differences. When comparing the two modalities, the findings…