What works to help community college students progress academically? This brief synthesizes 20 years of rigorous research by MDRC, presenting new evidence about key attributes of community college interventions that are positively related to larger impacts on students' academic progress. Findings: Findings are based on a synthesis of evidence from…

Despite high levels of motivation, only 8% of single mothers who attend a community college will graduate (Cruse, Milli et al., 2019). As a component of this Dissertation in Practice, a systematic literature review was conducted to explore the reasons behind these unacceptably low success rates. Based on data from empathy interviews, peer-reviewed…

We estimate the education and earnings returns to enrolling in technical two-year degree programs at community colleges in Missouri. A unique feature of the Missouri context is the presence of a highly-regarded, nationally-ranked technical college: State Technical College of Missouri (State Tech). Compared to enrolling in a non-technical community…

The problem this study addressed is that undergraduate, female, single parent students are less likely than other groups of women to complete college. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore perceived challenges of persistence to degree completion of undergraduate, female, single parent students in a Southern state, at a…

Located in Redding, California, Shasta College is an inspiring example of why serving students with "some college, but no degree" is critical to supporting the local community. Most residents in the area, which is one of the state's northernmost counties, live and work in the immediate area and serve the community through local…

Guided pathways, a program that aims to improve college completion and student success through remodeling of the student journey, supports learners in choosing a program of study, ideally resulting in transfer to a four-year school or the start of a lucrative career with a two-year degree. Colleges that employ a guided pathways model are seeing…

Two-year public colleges serve roughly one-third of undergraduate students in the United States, and, like other types of colleges across the country, they face shifting population demographics. Additionally, completion rates at two-year institutions have received political and scholarly attention within states and across the nation in recent…

Objective: Dual enrollment has become a significant portion of community college enrollment throughout the country. Some scholars have argued that dual enrollment implementation can be used as a viable policy lever to achieve the certificate and associate degree obtainment outcomes identified in "Reclaiming the American Dream," a…

The CUNY Research Scholars Program (CRSP) has provided year-long mentored research experiences for 1678 associate's degree STEM students since 2014. The pluralities (32%) of mentors, all of whom are full-time faculty, have been biologists. Other represented disciplines include, but are not limited to, chemistry, engineering, mathematics,…

The "on-time" degree completion crisis within the community college system is alarming. Only 5% of students graduate in two years (Complete College America [CCA], n.d.-a). Many community college students are low-income and racially and ethnically minoritized, and their graduation rates are low (CCA, n.d.-a). Community colleges around the…

The focus of this research is to provide a framework for community colleges and community-based organizations to partner in a manner that improves student outcomes in persistence and graduation rates. The proposed framework encourages digital student engagement that assists students with their non-academic needs, such as hunger or homelessness.…

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…

To improve community college success, we need to consider the lived realities of students. Our nation's community colleges are facing a completion crisis. The college-going experience of too many students is interrupted, lengthening their time to completing a degree--or worse, causing many to drop out altogether. In "The Costs of…

A third of the 2- and 4-year undergraduates beginning college in 2011-2012 changed their major in the first 3 years of enrollment. Yet, few studies have examined the effects of major switching on student outcomes, particularly in community colleges. Major switching can delay or impede college completion through excess credit accumulation, or it…

Community college leaders seeking best practices to improve completion rates and student success have a strategy to consider -- experiential learning as part of a course. An accounting business course, at a mid-sized community college in the southeast, recently implemented an experiential learning activity to determine the association with…