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Most students entering community college aim to earn a bachelor's degree. But, as shown in the recent study, 'Tracking transfer: new measures of institutional and state effectiveness in helping college students attain bachelor's degrees', a relatively small portion of these students transfer and earn a bachelor's degree within six years. This playbook is a practical guide to designing and implementing a key set of practices that will help community colleges and their four-year college partners improve transfer outcomes. The playbook is based on the practices of six sets of community colleges and universities that together serve transfer students well. These institutions have higher than expected rates of bachelor's degree attainment for degree-seeking students who start at community college and transfer to a four-year institution - after accounting for their student demographics and institutional characteristics.

The playbook is organized around three broad strategies observed in these partnerships: (1) make transfer student success a priority; (2) create clear programmatic pathways with aligned high-quality instruction; and (3) provide tailored transfer student advising. Included in the playbook are essential practices underlying each of these three strategies, a discussion of the next frontiers of practice, and a list of activities for community colleges and four-year colleges to undertake in order to implement the strategies.

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This guide presents examples and instructions for data analyses colleges can conduct to better understand student enrollments and completions in particular programs. Such analyses can help colleges scrutinize representation of historically marginalized groups in programs leading to greater opportunity after graduation. There is an equity imperative in this effort. Without disaggregating program enrollments with an eye to what those programs lead to - and interrogating and redesigning practices and policies perpetuating inequities - student success reform approaches such as guided pathways will likely continue to reinforce existing racial/ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic stratification. Examining representation across college programs with equity in mind is an important complement to the work colleges are doing to increase completion rates overall and close equity gaps.

The authors recommend that colleges undertake a series of data exercises and reflective discussions based on the following three questions: (1) What programs are our students currently enrolled in? (2) What opportunity does each program lead to in terms of further education (e.g., transfer to bachelor's programs or bridges into more advanced workforce credentials) and/or immediate job prospects and earnings; (3) Which programs lead to greater or lesser opportunity? Is student representation across programs proportionate? Which subgroups of students (by race/ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, and age) are underrepresented in higher-opportunity programs? To answer these questions, the authors show how to carry out a set of relatively simple data analyses that colleges can replicate using their own data. Similar analyses can be used to examine program completions.

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This resource is designed to help state entities organize workshops within which teams from two- and four-year institutions work together to improve transfer and graduation outcomes for their students. Through data analysis and self-reflection of institutional practices, these workshops help institutions develop action plans - individually and among partners - to improve transfer student success.

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In this article, researchers from the Community College Research Center reflect on what they have learned from their study of Guided Pathways reforms at over 100 colleges nationally since the publication in 2015 of Redesigning America's Community Colleges. They examine five areas of practice: (1) program design, (2) new student onboarding, (3) remediation and academic support, (4) ongoing student advising, and (5) teaching and learning. For each area, they describe how their thinking about Guided Pathways has evolved from the model presented in Redesigning and discuss the implications for practice. In the conclusion, they provide guidance to college and state system leaders about how to advocate for adequate state fiscal support for evidence-based reforms needed for achieving more equitable student outcomes and ensuring college survival in a very challenging environment for community colleges and their students.

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All 13 state community colleges are under the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) implementing what they call 'Tennessee completion practices' - reforms to help students choose, enter, navigate, and complete programs that prepare them for further education and careers. This report describes how the colleges are operationalizing the Tennessee completion practices in their own contexts, as well as how trends in leading indicators of student completion have changed since the reforms began.

Drawing on colleges' detailed self-assessments of their progress and telephone interviews with college administrators, staff, and faculty, the authors discuss how far along the colleges are in implementing completion practices in each of the four major areas of guided pathways reforms: (1) mapping pathways to student end goals; (2) helping students choose and enter a program pathway; (3) keeping students on path; and (4) ensuring that students are learning. They then examine promising trends in first-year momentum among entering students, with a focus on students' accumulation of college credits and completion of gateway college math and English courses in their first year. In addition to looking at overall improvements in early momentum metrics, the authors review the extent to which the colleges have made progress in closing equity gaps by race/ethnicity and age. The report concludes with a consideration of critical next frontiers for the Tennessee community colleges, along with future directions for the Community College Research Center's continuing research partnership with TBR and the Tennessee community colleges.

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Across the United States, a growing number of colleges are redesigning their programs and student support services according to the 'guided pathways' model. Central to this approach are efforts to clarify pathways to program completion, career advancement, and further education. Equally essential are efforts to help students explore college and career options and choose a program of study early on, help them make steady progress on their program plans, and ensure that they are building essential skills across their programs. This report provides insight into how colleges are planning and implementing guided pathways reforms. It is based on the early work of 30 colleges that are participating in the American Association of Community Colleges' (AACC) Pathways Project and have committed to redesigning their programs and support services at scale.

The report describes the variety of ways in which the AACC Pathways colleges are approaching guided pathways reforms in each of the model's four main practice areas: (1) mapping pathways to student end goals; (2) helping students choose and enter a program pathway; (3) keeping students on path; and (4) ensuring that students are learning.

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As of spring 2018, more than 250 community colleges in the US have committed to undertaking large-scale guided pathways reforms as part of national, state, or regional efforts, and many other colleges are doing so on their own. Guided pathways colleges are redesigning their policies, programs, and services to support student success in four major practice areas: (1) mapping pathways to student end goals; (2) helping students choose and enter a program pathway; (3) keeping students on path; and (4) ensuring that students are learning. This practitioner packet looks at what implementing guided pathways entails, along with promising evidence from early adopters.

Part one, 'A reform moves from theory to practice' by Davis Jenkins, Hana Lahr, John Fink, and Elizabeth Ganga, provides an overview of the changes in practice involved in the four areas of the guided pathways model. It also presents examples from colleges and data on improvements they have achieved in leading indicators of longer term success. Part two, 'Case studies' by Davis Jenkins, Hana Lahr, John Fink, Elizabeth Ganga, Elizabeth Kopko, Amy E. Brown, and Porshea Patterson, contains case studies of how colleges are approaching key pathways practices and includes data on promising trends in student progress and completion. Part three, 'Timeline and tips for implementing pathways reforms' by Davis Jenkins, Hana Lahr, John Fink, and Elizabeth Ganga, describes the process and timeline for implementing pathways and discusses how colleges can measure the effectiveness of their efforts.

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Objective: The objective of this study was to describe practices of 2- and 4-year institutional partnerships effective in supporting transfer student success. Method: Using student records from the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) for the entire 2007 fall cohort of first-time-in-college community college students nationwide, researchers identified partnerships of 2- and 4-year institutions that were more effective than expected (controlling for student and institutional characteristics) in enabling community college entrants to transfer to a 4-year institution and earn a bachelor's degree. Based on this methodology, and in partnership with the Aspen Institute's College Excellence Program, researchers visited six pairs of 2- and 4-year college transfer partnerships identified as high performers, interviewing more than 350 faculty, student-facing and senior-level staff, and transfer students.

Results: From these in-depth interviews, researchers identified a set of essential transfer practices common among these highly effective institutional partnerships. The practices were grouped under three broad strategies: (a) make transfer a priority, (b) create clear programmatic pathways with aligned high-quality instruction, and (c) provide tailored transfer advising. Contributions: This study offers a set of essential transfer practices culled from national fieldwork to 2- and 4-year institutional transfer partnerships identified using NSC data as highly effective in supporting transfer student success.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner.

Special issue: 'Transfer matters', guest edited by Mark M. D'Amico and Matt S. Giani. Show less

A primary focus among colleges implementing student success reforms has been to increase overall rates of completing any credential and to reduce racial and socioeconomic equity gaps in such completion rates. The focus on general completion may overlook inequities in the type of program students complete, which is particularly significant given the wide variety of credentials offered at community colleges - from short-term certificates to transfer-oriented associate degrees that may lead to bachelor's and graduate degree programs - and the resulting variation in labor market returns among completers. Our study examines racial/ethnic stratification among community college students as they enter and progress through different programs leading to higher- and lower-paying jobs. Specifically, we develop a discrete-time survival analysis using longitudinal enrollment and transcript data on first-time-in-college, credential-seeking community college students from a state with more than 20 community colleges.

We track student enrollment, completion, and transfer for up to nine years and examine when equity gaps in completion emerge. We also measure the student achievement of academic milestones (such as levels of credit accrual) along educational pathways that are associated with higher rates of credential completion and transfer over the long term. Results suggest that a significant gap in the likelihood of bachelor's degree completion between Black and White students emerges more episodically, while the gap between Hispanic and White students develops earlier and remains more consistent over time. Our results also suggest that, while all students generally benefit from the attainment of academic milestones such as gaining credit momentum or completing pre-transfer associate degrees, doing so disproportionately benefits Black and Hispanic students.

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As community colleges across the country implement large-scale reforms to improve student success, they need timely and actionable metrics to determine if the changes they are making in a given year or term will likely improve student outcomes in the long run. In this brief, the authors examine how well nine measures of students' progress in their first year predict student completion in subsequent years, and thus how suitable these early momentum metrics are as leading indicators of the effectiveness of institutional reforms. Based on analysis of student data from all community colleges in three states, the authors find that early momentum metrics do predict longer term success for students. They also find that a key factor in low completion rates, as well as in equity gaps in completion rates, is that many students do not gain early momentum in their first year. College outcomes would be substantially higher if more students met early momentum metrics. These findings indicate the need for comprehensive reforms to community college organization and practice to help more students gain early momentum on their way to earning a credential.

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