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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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Measuring completion outcomes is an important part of understanding how well community colleges are serving their students; however, the way in which these numbers are typically understood and used does little to help colleges meaningfully increase the success of its students. This guide explores a more nuanced understanding of what completion means for the wide range of students who are each seeking their own versions of 'success' and offers colleges an opportunity to use this broader interpretation of completion to take specific action around boosting student success.

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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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The approach by community and technical colleges of embedding 'stackable' certificates aligned to industry certifications within associate degrees has emerged in recent years as a practical way of helping students progress along the education continuum while earning credentials with labor market value. By organizing programs into a series of certificates that build on each other, colleges can offer incremental milestones on the path to associate degree completion.

This guide provides practical steps for enhancing employer engagement, designing programs with stackable credentials, supporting student completion, and sustaining programs responsive to employer needs. Each section offers resources, tools, and promising practices.

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This practice guide, developed by the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) in conjunction with an expert panel, focuses on promising career pathways interventions where there is evidence of improved educational or labor market outcomes. It provides community colleges with five specific recommendations for supporting occupational skills training through career pathways: (1) intentionally design and structure career pathways to enable students to further their education, secure a job, and advance in employment; (2) deliver contextualized or integrated basic skills instruction to accelerate students' entry into and successful completion of career pathways; (3) offer flexible instructional delivery schedules and models to improve credit accumulation and completion of non-degree credentials along career pathways; (4) provide coordinated comprehensive student supports to improve credit accumulation and completion of non-degree credentials along career pathways; and (5) develop and continuously leverage partnerships to prepare students and advance their labor market success.

The discussion of each recommendation includes four critical components: (1) an actionable recommendation, a summary of the research evidence that supports the recommendation, and a description of how the recommended practice supports student learning; (2) guidance on how to carry out the recommendation, informed by studies that support the recommendation, as well as the panel's expertise and knowledge of strategies available to help implement the recommendation; (3) potential obstacles and advice from the expert panel about how to overcome them; and (4) practical information and examples to help practitioners implement the recommendation.

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Community colleges measure success by the outcomes their students achieve, in addition to the number of students they serve. However, while completion outcomes are important metrics of success, they do not measure all of the goals of community colleges. There are also significant metrics of success related to workforce development that can occur outside of the completion framework. A surprising number of first-time community college students enroll in six or fewer units, succeed in those courses, but do not complete a credential or transfer. Many of those students, particularly those who enroll in career and technical education subjects, take a coherent cluster of related courses and, as a result, attain significant wage gains.

This guide outlines research on skills-builder students in California community colleges. Through built-in discussion questions, this guide also helps relate research results to key concerns in community colleges. It is intended to support conversations on college campuses and in the policy arena regarding: how to better understand students’ goals by examining their course-taking behavior; the types of measures that are needed to improve the assessment of community college outcomes and impacts; and the potential implications and effects of current policy and institutional reform efforts.

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Colleges support students with advising, counseling, or coaching in academics and other skills they need to succeed in school. Some colleges enhance those services through reduced adviser caseloads and more comprehensive, frequent guidance, which can improve students' semester-to-semester retention and average credits earned. This overview describes important lessons on designing and implementing those services. College leaders and administrators committed to designing, building, managing, and continually supporting enhanced advising services can consult this checklist of recommendations as they redesign or enhance these services - as stand-alone services or as part of multifaceted interventions.

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Community colleges have a unique opportunity to enable students to acquire the skills they need to [secure] good jobs with strong wages, but colleges can only fulfill this promise if they are taking advantage of available data to tailor their educational programs to current labor market needs and measure the labor market outcomes of their graduates. This guide explains how colleges can improve student labor market success after graduating, offering concrete examples and describing six data sets that colleges can use today.

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