Earning a college degree is a major pathway to economic mobility. Although Black women enter college at higher rates than white, Hispanic, and Black men (for example, in 2020, Black women enrolled in college at a 40% rate, compared to 37% for White men, 31% for Black men, and 30% for Hispanic men) they still face barriers to degree completion,…

The purpose of this study was to address the underrepresentation of racially minoritized students in the STEM field. Community colleges have emerged as institutions that are uniquely positioned to increase the number of racially minoritized students in STEM. To support the success of racially minoritized students in STEM, a recommended practice is…

The problem that was addressed in this qualitative case study was that student retention and graduation rates at community colleges have been affected by the lack of support provided to students during their academic careers. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to gain an understanding of how administrators perceived they were acting in…

The Community College Academic and Student Support Ecosystems (CCASSE) project examines how academic and student support services at not-for-profit associate-degree granting colleges are organized, funded, and staffed in order to most effectively advance student success. Between February and November 2020, 37 chief academic officers, chief student…

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship and predictability of demographic factors on the persistence, study habits and motivation level among African American and Latino male community college students. Specifically, this study was concerned with the predictive power of demographic (socio-economic status, age, ethnicity, and…

Many community college students experience high levels of stress due to the demands of coursework and stressors outside of the classroom. Contemplative practices such as deep breathing can reduce stress and increase focus, but students may not be familiar with or feel that they have time to engage in these practices. We hypothesized that…

Open educational resources (OERs) are an alternative textbook to publisher materials used by colleges and universities. OER materials have a cost advantage for students; many are published as free or cost-reduced textbooks for students. The authors developed and piloted an OER textbook for Business Law I in the Management program of the School of…

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted several states to adopt or scale new placement methods, since many test-based placement metrics were unavailable. In April 2020, the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) approved a pilot to add high school GPA as a placement method at Tennessee community colleges alongside other measures included in TBR's learning…

Community colleges are tasked with juggling multiple missions. They provide open access to education for adults in their community, work with industry partners to educate the local workforce, and provide relevant programming to the communities they serve. When compared with students at four-year institutions, community college students are older,…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate the student equity strategies amidst the COVID-19 pandemic of a student service division at a California community college. The coronavirus of 2019 had presented new and unexplored challenges to equity efforts in higher education and had amplified the existing inequities at community…

California Assembly Bill 705 (AB 705) began full implementation in fall of 2020 for California community college English departments. This Bill requires schools to reconsider developmental education saying that students can no longer be required to take classes below transfer-level in English unless the school can show a student would not be able…

Public accountability demands have resulted in changes to higher education funding over the past four decades (Heller, 2011). The performance-based funding (PBF) metrics of retention and completion impact community colleges struggling to secure public funding, while addressing the needs of broad student populations (Dougherty, Jones, Lahr, Natow…

Associate degrees and credentials in Information Technology (IT) have the potential to open up high-wage and high-opportunity labor market opportunities for learners. Yet structural barriers in access to and completion of these degrees and credentials continue to make it difficult for Black learners and workers to access and thrive in these…

In 2022, the Center for the Study of Social Policy and Project SPARC conducted research to better understand the barriers experienced by parenting students participating in CalWORKs, California's cash assistance program for families with children. This brief highlights findings from the research on parenting students' experiences meeting their…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a curriculum based on self-regulated strategy instruction in college developmental writing courses. Prior research that had found large effects on the writing quality for essays without sources was extended to include strategies for critical reading and note-taking, writing summary response…