The Suburban Boulevard Community College (SBCC), a pseudonym, has been experiencing a low persistence rate among first-year full-time students. Further, a gap in practice exists where college administrators at the SBCC were not assessing first-year students' level of college readiness as a likely predictor of low persistence. The study was grounded by two theoretical frameworks: Tinto's (1993) Theory of Student Departure and Conley's Readiness Model. This quantitative study aimed to determine if college readiness, as measured by Conley's Readiness mini quizzes, "Mindset," and "Self-Management," predicts first-year community college students' persistence as measured by their return for the second semester. Ninety-one (91) full-time first-year students completed a survey on Conley mini quizzes. The logistic regression model results showed statistical significance X2 (1) = 42.01, p < 0.001, meaning college readiness is a predictor of students' persistence. The Nagelkerke R2 = 0.553 indicates that 55% of the variation in students' persistence could be explained by their college readiness scores. Also, for every point increase in students' college readiness scores, the odd ratio is 1.29 times more likely that students will persist at college. The policy recommendations for addressing the local problem include creating a 'student-ready' environment. This is to be achieved through improving first-year orientation, academic support programs, faculty and student social integration, and continuous college readiness assessment along with frequent professional development training for faculty and staff. A positive social change is realized when more of SBCC students persist, graduate with credentials, find meaningful employment, and contribute to the local island's economy. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]