A substantive amount of research has been conducted on how work influences persistence and completion, for those who decide to leave we know little about where they go to work and how much they earn. The purpose of this study was to explore the work behaviors of a cohort of students who began their postsecondary experience at a community college…

Ten African American men, who began their college career in Basic Skills courses at an urban community college in California and successfully transferred to a four-year college or university, share their life stories through that process in this case study. Their experiences differed from the literature in peer group interaction and definition, in…

The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of the perceptions of underprepared college students who had participated in a first-year learning community at an urban, culturally diverse, commuter campus in the southeastern United States. Perceptions of graduates and those who earned at least 30 college-level credit hours were compared to…

Background/Context: Transfer from community colleges to four-year institutions remains a contentious issue in higher education, with proponents showing that students do indeed transfer to four-year institutions and opponents arguing that starting in community colleges hinders baccalaureate degree attainment. One particularly salient issue in this…

With their open access admission policies, low tuition costs, and convenient locations, community colleges are designed to make college accessible to all. They strive to meet three main goals. The first is to teach marketable vocational skills, the second is to provide the first two years of a four-year bachelor's degree program, and the third is…

This article explores institutional attributes that matter for two-year college students and how they vary by different subpopulations of students, with an eye toward understanding what institutional attributes better support the success of underprepared students. In particular, the authors address the following questions: (1) Which institutional…

A logit model predicting student outcomes for a gateway course, Math for Liberal Arts, was successfully developed which fits the data well. Two variables, ACT math score and high school GPA, were found to be significant predictors of achieving a C or better in Math for Liberal Arts. A practical implication of the study suggests that with just two…

We examined the effects of student (academic preparation, psychosocial, socio-demographic, and situational) and institutional characteristics on long-term enrollment outcomes. We tracked enrollments and degrees awarded for students who originally enrolled at two-year institutions across five years. Our findings have implications for identifying…

This study explored persistence for four groups of traditional-age (18-24) first-year students in an urban community college: native students, native students with immigrant parents, U.S. high-schooled immigrant students, and foreign high-schooled immigrant students. Earning a high school diploma and pre-college preparation (either high school…

"Policy Alert" is a publication series that summarizes important policy findings affecting the future of higher education. This issue is based on an earlier study, "Investigating the Alignment of High School and Community College Assessments in California". The "Policy Alert" summarizes the findings of the study, and…

The CollegeKeys Compact[TM] is a national call to action to school districts, colleges and universities, state education agencies, and nonprofit organizations to identify, share and expand programs and practices that address the needs and challenges of low-income students and help them get ready for, get into and get through college. The College…

This paper presents results of a qualitative study describing classroom participation in pre-college mathematics classes taught by seven successful community college faculty members. The analysis reveals high levels of student participation coupled with low complexity, which can result in detrimental opportunities for students to learn…

An increasing number of recent high school graduates' college math placement test results indicate that they are not ready for college level math. This study examined the perceptions of recent high school graduates enrolled in developmental math classes to determine their level of satisfaction with their math placement, the relationship of…

Although much national effort has been made to align the K-12 and higher education systems, the educational pipeline is still leaky at every stage. Furthermore, one of the on-going issues in the educational system is the lack of readiness of high school graduates for post-secondary education, especially for low income and minority students. As a…

Since the early 1990s, the federal government has required colleges to track and report graduation rates for all first-time, full-time degree- or certificate-seeking students. The most widely used figure tracks students for 150 percent of the time they expect to take to graduate. For bachelor's degree programs, students are considered graduates if…