With nearly half of all students in higher education not earning a degree, colleges and universities refine strategies to increase retention rates and to address specific needs determined by their student demographics. This study investigates the retention rates for full- and part-time students at public community colleges by degrees of urbanization (i.e., city, suburb, town, and rural), and the differences in retention rates between and among these differing institutions. The authors present the findings regarding retention rates and recommend further research to examine the causes.

MDRC’s Opening Doors Demonstration worked with six community colleges, using a control-trial study to evaluate the impact of various combinations of curricular reform, enhanced advising, and financial aid incentives on student persistence. This qualitative study draws from one-on-one interviews with a sample of students at two Opening Doors sites—Lorain County Community College and Kingsborough Community College—to gain a better understanding of how the Opening Doors services impact students’ college experiences.

Since the future of California’s economy is dependent upon its ability to fulfill workforce demands with highly educated individuals, improving completion and transfer rates at community colleges is key. This report examines the importance of a positive and successful first semester for improving persistence and transfer rates of community college students intending to transfer to a four-year college. The author discusses how actual student retention behavior doesn’t match educational aspirations and that policymakers need to pay less attention to college access and more attention to factors that foster student persistence in college, such as course-taking patterns and grades in transfer-eligible courses, and especially for students who reflect California’s changing demographics.

The career-focused learning community at Kingsborough Community College consists of three integrated courses designed to support students who have declared a major, particularly as they build their understanding of major-related career paths. This study tracks the progress of 917 students who participated in the one-semester program between 2007 and 2009. Overall the authors found that the program did not have a statistically significant impact on future performance, but did improve the single semester performance of recent transfer students.

In California, the completion and transfer rates for community college students is very low. This report examines California community college degree and certificate attainment and transfers to a California public, four-year college among first-time freshmen. Based on the data results on who is reaching completion, the report shows a very diverse student population and, thus, offers policy considerations for improving student success for all the varied types of students wanting to attain higher education.

African American students, particularly men, have historically underperformed in postsecondary education. To better serve these students, it is important for community colleges to have a strong understanding of the factors that influence their college experience. This combined quantitative/qualitative study examines the specific institutional factors at one California community college to identify which factors correlate with higher educational outcomes. Findings show that African American men perceive themselves as unsupported by and disconnected from the college community, but positive peer and faculty interactions can build a more supportive environment and relate to higher outcomes.

Among first-time community college students, the credential completion rate is low but the rates of completion are even less successful for low-income students. This paper uses quantitative data of a single cohort from the state of Washington to chart the rates at which students, especially socioeconomically disadvantaged students, enter a concentration, take remedial courses in each concentration, earn certificates or degrees, or transfer to four-year institutions. The authors examine the course-taking behavior of low-income students and find that compared to their peers from higher socioeconomic levels, low-income students are more likely to start in adult basic courses and less likely to enter a concentration in a field of study. Of those who select a concentration, low-income students are more likely to enter in career technical education, where completion rates are lower.

Despite a growing student demand for more course-taking opportunities in higher education, community colleges must operate with insufficient funding and limited institutional capacity. This report analyzes recent enrollment and policy trends at the nation’s community colleges. The author describes a discouraging situation, revealing expanding caps on community college enrollment, narrowing educational program aimed more at workforce development than continuing on for a bachelor’s degree, and decreased access to higher education for low-income students and students of color. The author concludes with recommendations that faculty can take to challenge and redirect the course of policy and practice in community colleges.

In our nation’s effort to improve our economy by providing a trained and educated workforce, there is significant effort to raise completion rates for students who are college ready and on the path to graduating, but little attention is given to students who left higher education just short of their degree. This brief introduces and elevates the concept of near completion and highlights ways in which institutions serving these students, as well as policymakers, researchers, and employers, can reengage and graduate this population. The brief offers short-term strategies that higher education leaders and other interested stakeholders can implement to keep momentum going.

This website, targeted to higher education policymakers and analysts, provides the data and information needed to make sound policy decisions. One key feature is the state rankings of difference in median earnings between a high school diploma and a Bachelors degree.

California postsecondary students are earning degrees at low rates, and degree attainment is even lower for students of color. This report uses cohort data of California Community College students and tracks their progress over six years, modeling how data-driven decision making can increase student success, especially for Latino students, the state’s fastest growing population. While the report describes key findings indicating low completion rates and great racial/ethnic disparities, the authors also present recommendations for improving institutional practices and state policy on data use to track student milestones toward efforts to increase student success.

The high dropout rate of Latino high school students means that Latino students are not enrolling in college, earning degrees, nor participating in the economy at the rate they should be. Based on the research, this report identifies six effective, replicable programs that have reduced dropout rates and have increased college attendance and student performance. Additionally, the authors describe other college attendance/dropout prevention programs that are used in California for improving outcomes of Latino students and present common program themes found among them.

Students forced to complete a long sequence of remedial or English language classes before they can begin their postsecondary program are less likely to earn college certificates or degrees. This brief highlights six promising programs that show how career pathway bridges help lower-skilled students move farther and faster along college and career paths through programs that link basic skills and occupational certificate courses. The author explains two career pathway bridges models — the paired course approach and the integrated course approach — and describes how six colleges implement either approach to meet the particular needs of lower-skilled adults.

Adult learners pursuing their postsecondary degrees after time away from the classroom need additional support to stay in school, different from the traditional student. Common strategies for helping adult learners achieve their goals are innovative academic programming, increased and creative financial aid opportunities, and support services. This study examines another strategy, Prior Learning Assessment, or PLA, which is the process by which colleges evaluate for academic credit the college-level knowledge and skills an individual has gained outside of the classroom such as through employment, the military, or hobbies. The findings show positive outcomes for PLA students who, compared to non-PLA students, had higher degree-earning rates and earned degrees in less time, saving on costs to the individuals and the institutions. Additionally, the report discusses PLA methods offered among the 48 colleges and universities studied, characteristics of the adult learners who participate in PLA, and their college-going behavior.

A distillation of the paper of the same name, this presentation from the 2011 convention of the American Association of Community Colleges explores the importance of tracking student progress toward entry in coherent programs of study and provides an overview of effective practices to enact at each phase to improve students’ success.

One population of postsecondary students who leave school before completion is adult learners. This report describes a six-state project aimed at raising educational attainment levels by focusing on identifying and eliminating barriers that keep adults with prior college credit from completing their postsecondary degrees. The report discusses how these states used data to identify ready adults and formed workgroups to examine and tackle state and institutional policy and practice barriers in five areas:  data, academic affairs, student services, financing and financial aid, and communications and outreach. The authors present a state-by-state profile describing the role that state governance structure and institutional context played in addressing barriers, as well as recommendations and promising strategies each state employed. Overall findings and recommendations conclude the report.

Recognizing college as an important aspect of their lives improves students’ chances of persisting, but community college students often have difficulty prioritizing it as such. This literature review examines how four non-academic supports—creating social relationships, clarifying aspirations and enhancing commitment, developing college know-how, and making college life feasible—can help students integrate into college-going culture and provides guidance for ensuring students have knowledge of and access to non-academic supports.

This report describes the efforts of one school district on the Texas-Mexico border that implemented dual enrollment and career pathway programs districtwide and successfully turned around a district known for high dropout rates and high populations of low-income students and second language learners who did not go on to college. The author describes how the district created rigorous career pathways and a range of early college options, and then explores the instructional changes in the classrooms implemented to prepare students for the challenges of college-level work.

This essay uses longitudinal transcript data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 to create transcript-based portraits of traditional-age community college students. These portraits focus on academic behaviors, including entry point, attendance patterns, persistence, course selection, and success to identify six basic populations described by age, the type of institution they attend, transfer rates, and educational expectations. The authors present this information through a metaphor that treats the community college as a “town” where students may visit or take up residence.

Based on survey data of more than 600 young adults, this final report of three examines the perspectives of students who completed college, students who didn’t finish college, and those who never attended to better understand the supports and barriers that influenced their higher education choices and outcomes. The report discusses key findings that reveal a group of young adults who may not understand the growing importance of an education for a changing workforce and are unaware of financial resources available to them. The authors present implications and questions for policymakers, especially related to financial aid. 

Students enrolled in non-credit ESL courses have low persistence rates; in this longitudinal study at an urban community college, only 8 percent made the transition to credit-bearing courses. The authors describe the non-credit and credit ESL programs, examining the enrollment trends, persistence rates, advancement rates, and transition rates to credit courses and finding a strong correlation between persistence, hours attended, and advancement of class levels. Additionally, they find that students who took advantage of two optional program features—the non-credit matriculation process and the program enhancement courses—were more likely to make transitions.

In this era of community college reform, college leaders are focused on increasing student success, but their efforts to create change are not always supported by current policy conditions. Based on the collaboration of California community college chief executive officers and members of their boards of trustees, this report captures their evidence-based recommendations and proposes a new policy agenda that creates conditions conducive to reform. The agenda comprises a breadth of specific recommendations for changes in local policies and practices as well as changes in state policy — given the political and economic climate — that are needed for community colleges to improve student success.

As part of efforts to improve student retention and success, the Virginia Community College System engaged CCRC to study the factors that impact students’ likelihood to progress through developmental courses and successfully earn college credit in math or English. The study tracked 24,000 students over the course of four years, and used the data to provide the schools with recommendations for improving student achievement. This study is presented in greater detail in Strategies for Promoting Gatekeeper Course Success Among Students Needing Remediation: Research Report for the Virginia Community College System (Roska, Jenkins, Jaggars, Zeidenberg, & Cho, 2009).

MDRC’s Opening Doors tested the impact of four academic interventions, operating individually and in combination. This report evaluates the performance-based scholarships implemented in two Louisiana community colleges. These scholarships—up to $1,000 in addition to other available aid disbursed in three payments throughout the semester—were offered to low-income parents on the condition that they maintain an average of “C” or better. The follow-up period was cut short due to the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the area, limiting the available findings, but initial results showed increased rates of registration, persistence, and credit earned for program participants.

Although California enjoys high enrollment rates, it has state policies that act as barriers to completion, resulting in poor completion rates. This policy brief describes how available data on demographics and course-taking behavior of California community college students could inform new policy focused on increasing college completion rates. Knowing that certain enrollment patterns are related to higher completion rates, the authors discuss how new policy could be aimed at encouraging those behaviors to lead to increased student success.

In order to meet the postsecondary degree and certificate target goals set by the Obama administration, numerous states, and some foundations, our nation will need to engage nontraditional students, such as adults, to help meet these goals. Based on conversations held by the Adult College Completion (ACC) Network, this brief discusses the strategies that Network members are using to target adult students, in particular those with prior college credit as a key strategy to improving the completion agenda. From these conversations, five topics emerged: data availability on the returning adult population, partnerships, communication and marketing campaign for outreach, transfer credits, and prior learning assessment. The author discusses and provides promising strategies for each.

Student success courses are designed to orient new students, giving them a stronger foundation of study skills and introducing the support services the school offers. Originally accompanying a presentation at the 2010 AERA meeting, this one-page summary provides an at-a-glance evaluation of the impact of these courses on student achievement within the Virginia Community College System.

Currently, the federal approach to measuring community college completion assumes that students will earn a credential within three years, but this assumes a college-attending behavior similar to a traditional full-time student, and does not account for older or part-time students who work and raise families while attending school. This policy brief discusses how the current federal method for measuring community college performance is too simplistic, and describes a modified approach to defining and measuring student success with more accuracy. Based on the pilot project of the Achieving the Dream Cross-State Data Work Group, the author reports on the group’s methodology for analyzing postsecondary data, the results of their testing process, and how the findings can lead to changes in state policy concerning increased community college success.

Current metrics used to track enrollment and matriculation of college students are insufficient for informing colleges of when students fail along the way, making it difficult for institutions to know how to help with new programs or interventions. They also differ between states and systems. In response, this report offers The Completion Arch, a five-part framework that can be commonly used as a nation and by states to measure student progress and success. The Completion Arch spans five areas, encompassing enrollment to workforce entry. For each area, the authors discuss what the research says, the multiple measures related to that area, and the indicators within each measure.

In the current developmental education model, few students who start more than one level below college proficiency ever complete their developmental education requirements. This report discusses the role of state policy in six Achieving the Dream states, presenting a framework that identifies the highest-impact policy levers for improving developmental education delivery and outcomes. The framework addresses three major components: a data-driven improvement process, a state-level innovation investment strategy, and policy supports for innovation and scale-up of effective practices.

Community colleges play an important role in helping to meet our nation’s goal of increasing its population of postsecondary educated adults, but community colleges are challenged by low retention and completion rates. This report discusses the hidden costs of almost $4 billion in federal, state, and local taxpayer funds that go toward educating first-year, full-time community college students who do not return for a second year. The authors report the costs on a national and individual state level, and purport that there is a tremendous need for higher education reform that will improve retention and completion rates in community colleges, reduce costs, and increase student success.

Currently, students who transfer institutions before earning a degree are reported as dropouts by their first institution, reinforcing an assumption that there is little mobility among college students. Using student-level enrollment data, this report examines the transfer behavior over five years of all students who began postsecondary education in the U.S. in 2006, and reveals that, in fact, postsecondary student enrollment, transfer, and persistence across all sectors of higher education is complex. The authors discuss the transfer patterns and findings, suggesting that with the realization that one-third of all students transfer before earning their degree, new approaches and metrics can be used to better support students on their educational pathway to degree attainment.

In order to better serve California’s community college students, it’s helpful to understand their postsecondary intentions and experiences. This brief, the second of a series on the outcomes of California community college students, examines the transfer patterns of two groups of students—students who met transfer requirements at a CCC but did not transfer to a four-year college or university, as well as students who had transferred but without having met the requirements. The authors discuss the characteristics and course-taking patterns of these two groups.

Some community college degree completers earn more credits than required at the cost of additional fees and time. Using data from six cohorts in one state’s community college system, this paper examines the percentage of students earning excess credits and the particular programs in which this phenomenon most frequently occurs. The author discusses possible contributing factors and recommends that colleges conduct degree audits to reduce the extraneous course-taking behaviors.

Measuring student success by completion rate doesn’t present an accurate picture of the different postsecondary goals students have and how they plan to reach them. Using data from an earlier study, this report examines how community college students’ patterns of course-taking behavior can contribute to or distract from meeting their degree, certificate, and transfer goals. The authors identify characteristics of students who exhibit these patterns and suggest that community colleges use these data to strengthen support services and interventions, especially for the disproportionate groups of students that are not successfully reaching completion.