Our preliminary experiment examined a potential pain point with ASSIST, California's database of articulation agreements. That pain point is cross-referencing multiple articulation agreements to manually develop an "optimal" academic plan. Optimal is defined as the minimal set of community college courses that satisfy all transfer…

To understand retention, evaluation of guided pathways implementation is an important tool. In an effort to help students succeed, colleges often give students a specified set of core courses and a specific or even prescribed pathway to complete their general education requirements. Retention efforts are always a topic with administrators at…

This study assesses the impacts of the Science program at Piedmont Virginia Community College and its flagship capstone research experience, Supervised Study, through psychosocial perceptions associated with persistence in science and through a comparative analysis of subsequent science bachelor's degree attainment. Supervised Study involves…

This is the third brief summarizing results from the longitudinal analysis of the Transfer Opportunity Project (TOP). TOP, funded by a grant from the Institute for Education Sciences (IES), explores the possible factors contributing to the low percentage of community college students who go on to earn bachelor's degrees. The project uses a…

The COVID-19 pandemic caused an abrupt change in educational programs worldwide, including workforce development education in community colleges. Given the hands-on requirements of these programs, considerations for changes included if and how instructors and students could maintain academic continuity during the pandemic. This article focuses on…

There are longstanding concerns regarding whether remedial coursework at the college or university level is the most effective and efficient way to increase student success for students deemed not "college ready" upon entry to college. Requiring students to complete these courses (often non-credit-bearing) prior to becoming eligible for…

This study provides a deeper understanding of the challenges facing community college transfer students in engineering and their faculty advisors at a 4-year research university. Using a phenomenological approach, data was analyzed from interviews with nine engineering transfers and seven faculty advisors. The findings unveiled nuanced barriers…

As a partner with the City University of New York (CUNY) on the Transfer Opportunity Project, MDRC's Center for Applied Behavioral Science (CABS) team used behavioral mapping to help identify the malleable factors (that is, the factors subject to change) that impede student transfer. MDRC and CUNY researchers conducted nearly 50 interviews and…

For decades, higher education professionals and researchers have used the term reverse transfer to describe a specific group of students. A current review of community college literature and higher education policy reflects a contextual change of the term, and today reverse transfer has grown to include students who transfer from a two-year…

Community colleges educate a diverse group of students. Effective first-year programs should focus on a variety of interventions that improve learning and retention. Students have academic, intellectual, and social challenges during their community college experience. First-year orientation programs should help students adapt. This article…

Increasing demand for nurses with bachelor degrees, the growing culture of accountability in higher education, and the community college baccalaureate phenomena provided the impetus for this study. This ex-post facto quantitative study examined the graduation rates and time to degree of 240 students who were enrolled in a bachelor of science in…

Colleges and universities across the country are seeing their bond ratings drop and their budgets shrink. Employers complain that college graduates are not prepared for the workplace, and many students find themselves saddled with considerable debt and no job to show for it. These are trying times for parents, for students, and for institutions.…

The visibility of developmental education--or basic skills education as it is called most often in California--has increased in recent years. One major catalyst was a comprehensive community college strategic planning process completed in 2004 that listed basic skills as a critical area of focus. Another was an increase in the system's minimum…

With community colleges educating up to one-half of all U.S. undergraduates, more focus on internationalization is warranted in order to ensure student competitiveness in today's global labor pool. This ex post facto study of 2006 survey data from the American Council on Education (ACE) found a low level of internationalization occurring at most…

This handbook is designed to help teacher education students as they learn about the teaching profession and their responsibilities as a student taking teacher preparation course work. It is hoped that the handbook helps them to avoid delays and roadblocks in the pursuit of their goal to become a certified teacher. Since there are several degree…