"Can Scholarships Alone Help Students Succeed? Lessons from Two New York City Community Colleges" examined the effects of performance-based scholarships for low-income community college students (ages 22-35) who were required to enroll in remedial courses. The study evaluated the impact of the scholarships on continued community college…

In an effort to improve developmental education students' outcomes, community colleges have been experimenting with acceleration strategies. Models of acceleration allow students to complete their developmental requirements in a shorter amount of time. However, there has been limited empirical research on the effects of accelerating students'…

Community colleges play a vital role in higher education, enrolling more than one in every three postsecondary students. While the market share of these institutions has grown over the past 50 years, students' success rates remain low. Consequently, community college stakeholders are searching with mounting urgency for strategies that increase…

This paper uses the credits-attempted perspective--in the context of how many credits a student attempts in their first year of college--and reports on several related projects all intended to evaluate potential interventions to raise academic momentum among first-year community college students. The presentation contrasts non-experimental…

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of prior learning assessment (PLA) in postsecondary degree completion for adult community college students at Mountwest Community and Technical College (MCTC). The study group consisted of 339 MCTC graduates, who applied PLA credits toward degree completion between the academic year 2006 and 2011.…

The expense of attending college is one factor that may explain why low-income students often drop out of school. In California, despite generous state aid and relatively low fees at community colleges, many low-income students still have substantial college-related costs that they cannot cover. To compound matters, federal support for students…

This article reports findings from an impact study of a 2-year postsecondary academic program offered in state prisons. Outcomes examined for participants during their 1st year of participation include performance on a standardized test of critical thinking skills, credit acquisition, achievement motivation, educational aspirations, personal…

The Learning Communities Demonstration is a national research project that is testing the effectiveness of learning communities in six community colleges across the United States: Merced College in California; The Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) in Baltimore, Maryland; Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Florida; Houston…

The Concurrent Courses Initiative (CCI), funded by The James Irvine Foundation from 2008 until 2011, comprised eight secondary/postsecondary partnerships across California that offered dual enrollment programs with supplemental student supports. The goal of the CCI was to expand access to supportive, career-focused dual enrollment for students…