This qualitative pilot study introduces and reflects on early development and implementation of the Zero Fee Tuition (ZFT) program in the rural, oil and gas town of Drayton Valley, Alberta, Canada. This innovative, primarily municipally funded program, implemented in 2019, provides local students with up to $5,000 in free tuition for select…

The Sustainable Development Goals link access to higher education, particularly for non-traditional populations, as a way to fight poverty and ensure prosperity. This article examines the experiences of several under-researched categories of non-traditional students who attend Community Colleges and Technical Vocational Education and Training…

The goal of this single-phase and convergent mixed methods study was to compare the differences in the effectiveness of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) presences of a community college blended block instructional model with the in-person counterpart. Data were gathered from the Community of Inquiry Survey, Blackboard LMS reports, and course…

With changing demographics, Canadian institutions of higher education are under pressure to address the challenges of student, faculty, and staff diversity. Despite growing numbers of international students at Canada's community colleges, this group has historically been underrepresented. The intersectionality of their minority-status…

Internationalization in the community college sector serves many purposes that align with the local and national contexts in which an institution is situated. One method of assessing how international efforts have become institutionalized is through the analysis of internationalization plans. Prior research examining internationalization plans and…

Employment training services are provided for immigrants to integrate them into the Canadian labour market. Evaluated on short-term labour market outcomes, these programs typically focus on enhancing individuals' employability, while risking naturalizing and reproducing the dominant social and cultural order. "Entry to Hospitality Careers for…

With nearly half the states having authorized community colleges to award baccalaureate degrees, the community college baccalaureate (CCB) has become an increasingly common feature of the landscape of American higher education. While there has been an expansion of research on the CCB in recent years, the research to date consists mainly of studies…

There are growing demands to proactively support students with disabilities in postsecondary education. This article examines a mixed-methods study with accessibility consultants and other faculty in a community college pilot program focussed on redesigning courses to increase inclusiveness. Findings highlight the successful and well-received role…

Reverse transfer has been part of the United States post-secondary landscape for more than a decade, in the form of statewide, system-wide, regional, and institutional transfer agreements. Reverse transfer agreements, as structured in the US, allow a college student in an associate degree program who transfers to a university before completing the…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the roles of quality managers at community colleges, their experiences balancing accountability and improvement and their insights into the future of quality assurance. Design/methodology/approach: This phenomenological, qualitative study used semi-structured interviews with eight community college quality…

Even though the importance of technical and vocational education is acknowledged in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations in 2015, the university sector has dominated the discourse on the role of postsecondary educational institutions in sustainability. This comparative study widens the scope by highlighting…

Nursing Assistants (NAs) are the largest workforce in nursing homes, but often lack adequate preparation for their role. The Living Classroom (LC) is an integrated learning approach, whereby a NA program is delivered in a nursing home (NH) in collaboration with a community college. This paper describes the implementation and evaluation of the LC.…

In 2013, an urban college developed a mandatory soft skills course. Unique among postsecondary institutions, the course has been running since fall 2015. Research has now been conducted into the effectiveness of the course. A mixed-methods research study collected primary data and a literature review of the pertinent secondary data. Data sets…

Canada ranks first by a substantial margin among OECD member countries in the proportion of the adult population whose highest level of educational attainment is the completion of a programme of short-cycle tertiary education. Short-cycle tertiary education (SCTE) refers to the types of programmes typically offered by community colleges and…

The Post-Secondary Central Data Warehouse reflects student-level data submitted by 21 of BC's public post-secondary institutions, including colleges, institutes and seven universities. University of British Columbia, University of Victoria, Simon Fraser University and University of Northern British Columbia are not included in these reports. The…