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Nationwide, community colleges struggle with how to improve the poor outcomes of students referred to developmental education. Based on a case study of an urban community college system, this paper sets forth an opposing forces framework to help diagnose the underlying issues that may thwart colleges' efforts to improve developmental outcomes. [The authors] identify three sets of opposing forces: system-wide consistency versus institutional autonomy; efficient versus effective assessment; and promotion of student progression versus enforcement of academic standards. Within each set, both goals are important and worthy, but they also tend to work in opposition to one another, creating confusion, frustration, and other barriers to meaningful reform. [The authors] describe how each of the three tensions shape developmental policy and practice. [The authors] also provide suggestions on potential reforms that could bring these apparently opposing forces into alignment and, thus, create a developmental education system that works to meet all its stakeholders' goals.

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Using detailed administrative data from Virginia, this paper examines how and why the community college pathway to a baccalaureate influences students' degree attainment and short-term labor market performance. [The authors] find that the community college pathway sharply reduces the likelihood of earning a bachelor's degree but does not have a significant impact on students' short-term labor market performance. [The authors] examine various mechanisms that may stand in the way of students' baccalaureate completion: the impacts of two-year attendance on early academic progress, the logistical challenges inherent in selecting and enrolling in a four-year transfer destination, the loss of credits at the point of transfer, and post-transfer academic 'shock'. [The] results suggest that the primary culprit is that many otherwise successful community college students never enter a four-year transfer destination. Among students who do transfer, their probability of baccalaureate attainment and their short-term labor market performance are comparable to those of native four-year students. After taking into account the lower costs of community college attendance, [the] cost-benefit analysis finds that two-year entrants fare as well as or better than four-year entrants, at least in the short run (eight years after college entry).

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Proponents of postsecondary online education were recently buoyed by a meta-analysis sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education suggesting that, in many cases, student learning outcomes in online courses are superior to those in traditional face-to-face courses. This finding does not hold, however, for the studies included in the meta-analysis that pertain to fully online, semester-length college courses; among these studies, there is no trend in favor of the online course mode. What is more, these studies consider courses that were taken by relatively well-prepared university students, so their results may not generalize to traditionally underserved populations. Therefore, while advocates argue that online learning is a promising means to increase access to college and to improve student progression through higher education programs, the Department of Education report does not present evidence that fully online delivery produces superior learning outcomes for typical college courses, particularly among low-income and academically underprepared students. Indeed some evidence beyond the meta-analysis suggests that, without additional supports, online learning may even undercut progression among low-income and academically underprepared students.

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Objective: Few community college students who aspire to transfer ever do so. Prior research suggests that relationships with advisors, faculty, and administrators may play an important role in promoting successful transfer outcomes, particularly for traditionally underserved students. This study examines how students identified and weighed possible transfer destination colleges, and how dedicated and personalized advisement shaped students' transfer plans and contributed to their transfer outcomes. Method: This mixed-methods study uses interviews to explore students' transfer planning processes, as well as student record data to examine transfer outcomes. Analyses compare students who received personalized transfer advising through a community college honors program and similarly qualified transfer-aspiring peers attending the same six community colleges who received 'business as usual' advising.

Results: Findings suggest that personalized advisement and relationships with transfer advisors contributed to higher rates of transfer and may support transfer to more-selective destinations. Contributions: This research extends the selectivity of their transfer destinations. We also offer more empirical support for the importance of personal relationships and transfer agents in facilitating successful transfer outcomes. Literature on community college transfer by tracing students' planning processes, exploring factors that raise or lower transfer aspirations, and estimating the effects of an advising-intensive honors program on students' transfer outcomes, including the selectivity of their transfer destinations. We also offer more empirical support for the importance of personal relationships and transfer agents in facilitating successful transfer outcomes.

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Using a dataset containing nearly 500,000 courses taken by over 40,000 community and technical college students in Washington State, this study examines how well students adapt to the online environment in terms of their ability to persist and earn strong grades in online courses relative to their ability to do so in face-to-face courses. While all types of students in the study suffered decrements in performance in online courses, some struggled more than others to adapt: males, younger students, Black students, and students with lower grade point averages. In particular, students struggled in subject areas such as English and social science, which was due in part to negative peer effects in these online courses.

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Given the current labor shortage in the field of computer science (CS), it is critical to the continued strength and growth of the US economy for colleges to supply more CS graduates. Moreover, in order to understand the problems faced by diverse populations and generate creative hardware and software solutions, the populations of CS graduates themselves need to be more diverse. Although community colleges represent a promising source for CS bachelor level graduates from groups underrepresented in the field, much work remains to be done in order for that promise to be fulfilled. This report investigates the national landscape of CS students at community colleges in order to better understand student behaviors and institutional characteristics that support or hinder community college students' efforts to attain a CS bachelor degree.

The data suggest that navigating the community college pathway to a CS bachelor degree is complex and challenging. The following findings from the authors' analyses point to areas where further strides could be made toward supporting the success of community college students in CS: (1) community college students who eventually attained a CS bachelor degree were unusually focused and fortunate; (2) CS bachelor degree earners were less likely than their peers to earn a community college award; and (3) although CS pre-baccalaureate award earners were more likely to be from underrepresented groups, few went on to earn a bachelor degree in CS. The report also presents recommendations on how two- and four-year colleges can partner more closely together to create more structured and supported pathways that will help a larger number of underrepresented community college students to attain a CS bachelor degree.

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This report discusses findings and recommendations from a Community College Research Center (CCRC) study designed to help community colleges develop strategies for improving the rate at which academically underprepared students take and pass initial college-level (or 'gatekeeper') courses in math and English. Based on analysis of more than 24,000 first-time students who enrolled in a Virginia community college in summer or fall 2004, the study examines student characteristics, course-taking patterns, and other factors associated with higher probabilities that students who require remediation will take and pass math and English gatekeeper courses.

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Using a large administrative dataset from a statewide community college system, the authors employed an instrumental variable technique to estimate the impact of online versus face-to-face course delivery on student course performance, as indicated by course persistence and final course grade. To control for self-selection bias, distance from each student's home to the student's college campus was used as an instrument for the likelihood of enrolling in an online section of a given course. Course fixed effects were added to the instrumental variable model to compare students who took different sections of the same course with different delivery formats, potentially controlling for within- and between-course selection bias. Analyses yield robust negative estimates for online learning in terms of both course persistence and course grade. These results suggest that policymakers and college administrators may need to improve the quality of online learning before enacting policies that would incentivize an accelerated expansion of online enrollments.

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To help guide students through program and course options, all community colleges provide academic advising services. However, to provide the support needed, colleges would have to substantially increase their number of advisers. Given increasing enrollments and decreasing public funding, more cost-effective solutions are needed. This chapter examines the use of technology and other structural changes to encourage comprehensive advising reforms. Using case study data gathered from several community colleges engaged in technology-mediated advising reforms, the authors suggest that e-advising tools may be most effective when they prompt colleges to rethink and restructure delivery of a range of services and programs into a more cohesive and international whole.

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Given the rapid growth in online coursework within higher education, it is important to establish and validate quality standards for these courses. While many online learning quality rubrics do exist, thus far there has been little empirical evidence establishing a clear link between specific aspects of course quality and concrete, student-level course outcomes. In the current study, the authors develop an online course quality rubric that comprises four areas, and they explore the relationship between each quality area and student end-of-semester performance in 23 online courses at two community colleges. The results indicate that the quality of interpersonal interaction within a course relates positively and significantly to student grades. Additional analyses based on course observation and interview data suggest that frequent and effective student-instructor interaction creates an online environment that encourages students to commit themselves to the course and perform stronger academically.

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