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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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Using a large administrative dataset from a statewide system including 34 community and technical colleges, the authors employed an instrumental variable technique to estimate the impact of online versus face-to-face course delivery on student course performance. The travel distance between each student's home and college campus served as an instrument for the likelihood of enrolling in an online section of a given course. In addition, college-by-course fixed effects controlled for within- and between-course selection bias. Analyses yield robust negative estimates for online learning in terms of both course persistence and course grade, contradicting the notion that there is no significant difference between online and face-to-face student outcomes - at least within the community college setting. Accordingly, both two-year and four-year colleges may wish to focus on evaluating and improving the quality of online coursework before engaging in further expansions of online learning.

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Several colleges participating in Achieving the Dream piloted small-scale developmental education reforms with promising results. Fifteen such colleges were selected to participate in the Developmental Education Initiative (DEI) with the goal of expanding innovative strategies to a large scale across a three-year period. This report uses qualitative and quantitative data to examine the implementation of these strategies. The authors also identify factors that facilitated or hindered scale-up and assess the broader impact of the DEI on participating institutions. Across the DEI colleges, student participation in developmental education reforms rose from 18 per cent in fall 2009 to 41 per cent in fall 2011. A rigorous impact study was not part of the evaluation, but analyses suggest that most often, there was no significant difference between outcomes for reform participants and nonparticipants. However, when there was such a difference, students who participated in DEI strategies tended to have stronger outcomes than those who did not.

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This report investigates enrollment patterns and academic outcomes in online, hybrid, and face-to-face courses among students who enrolled in Washington State community and technical colleges in the fall of 2004. Students were tracked for nearly five years, until the spring of 2009. Results were similar to those found in a parallel study in Virginia. Students who were employed for more hours and students who had demographic characteristics associated with stronger academic preparation were more likely to enroll in online courses; however, students who enrolled in hybrid courses were quite similar to those who enrolled in a purely face-to-face curriculum. After controlling for student characteristics using multilevel regression techniques, results indicated that students were more likely to fail or withdraw from online courses than from face-to-face courses. In addition, students who took online coursework in early terms were slightly but significantly less likely to return to school in subsequent terms, and students who took a higher proportion of credits online were slightly but significantly less likely to attain an educational award or transfer to a four-year institution. In contrast, students were equally likely to complete a hybrid course as to complete a face-to-face course. Additional analyses with a new cohort of students entering in 2008 showed short-term results consistent with those of the 2004 cohort. Given the importance of online learning in terms of student convenience and institutional flexibility, current system supports for online learning should be bolstered and strengthened in order to improve completion rates among online learners. Specific recommendations are discussed in the report's conclusion.

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This paper presents the findings from a follow-up quantitative analysis of the Community College of Baltimore County's Accelerated Learning Program (ALP). The results suggest that among students who enroll in the highest level developmental writing course, participation in ALP is associated with substantially better outcomes in terms of English 101 completion and English 102 completion (college-level English courses), which corroborates the results of a similar analysis completed in 2010. Moreover, using a larger number of cohorts and tracking students over a longer period of time, we also found that ALP students were more likely than non-ALP students to persist to the next year. In addition to specific subgroup analyses, we compared college-ready students enrolled in ALP sections of English 101 with their counterparts in wholly college-ready sections, and found that those in ALP sections had equivalent performance within English 101 itself, but slightly lower subsequent college-level course enrollment and completion.

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Many community college students are overwhelmed by the number and complexity of choices they face in navigating college, leading to suboptimal decisions that can waste their time and money or that can divert them from a promising academic or career path. This case study describes how a large, suburban community college planned and implemented a relatively low-cost redesign of its student intake and information provision processes in an attempt to reduce confusion and increase student success.

Preliminary results suggest that the redesign improved the student experience, increasing the proportion of students who found the college's orientation to be very helpful and improving their performance on self-advising tasks. The concluding section of this paper discusses additional possibilities for low-cost improvements to help students navigate college, including simplifying program and transfer structures, more explicitly teaching students how to self-advise, and leveraging online e-advising tools to make advisors' work more in-depth, effective, and efficient.

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With the advent of massive open online courses (or MOOCs), it is theoretically possible for anyone with an Internet connection to access course materials from elite universities - a possibility that some commentators have hailed as a ‘democratization’ of education. Of course, MOOCs are very new, and it is not yet clear how they will affect postsecondary access or attainment, particularly among traditionally underserved populations. To provide some perspective on how MOOCs and other online delivery methods might affect educational equity, in this article [the author] examines recent research on online college coursework (that is, courses in which most or all of the learning experience takes place online) and discuss potential implications for postsecondary access and learning.

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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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Nearly two decades into the 'completion agenda' in higher education, many community colleges have adopted collegewide reforms designed to improve stubbornly flat rates of student success and address persistent equity gaps. The longer-term effects of such collegewide reforms may take years to observe. In the meantime, college leaders need to know whether changes they make in the short run are associated with longer-term student success. Measuring the progress and effects of institutional reform is particularly vital in economically important STEM fields.

Drawing on administrative records from transfer-intending community college starters across three states, this study develops and explores potential indicators of early STEM program momentum. The authors find that a relatively simple set of STEM momentum metrics - notably early completion of calculus or non-math STE coursework specified in statewide STEM transfer pathways and, to a lesser degree, the prerequisites to such courses - are reliable indicators of subsequent STEM transfer and bachelor's degree attainment. The study's findings provide support for the use of the STEM momentum metrics to formatively evaluate reforms aimed at strengthening STEM transfer outcomes and closing equity gaps in STEM bachelor's degree attainment.

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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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