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In the US, 1,200 community colleges enroll over 10 million students each year - nearly half the number of US undergraduates. Yet fewer than 40 per cent of entrants complete an undergraduate degree within six years. This fact has put pressure on community colleges to improve academic outcomes for their students. This book is based on findings from the Community College Research Center's study of community colleges over the past eight years. It argues that to substantially increase student completion, community colleges must engage in fundamental redesign in relation to the organisation of programs of study, support services, and instruction. Community colleges were originally designed to expand college enrollments at low cost, not to maximize completion of high-quality programs of study. The result was a model in which students could select courses from an array of choices with little guidance. The authors urge administrators and faculty to reject this traditional model in favor of 'guided pathways', that is, clearer, more educationally coherent programs of study that simplify students' choices without limiting their options and that enable them to complete credentials and advance to further education and the labor market more quickly and at less cost.

Edited excerpts from publisher's website.

The contents are as follows: Introduction; Redesigning college programs; Guiding students; Rethinking student instruction; Helping underprepared students; Engaging faculty and staff; The economics of college redesign; Conclusion. Show less

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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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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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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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.

Excerpt from publisher's website. Show less

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.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

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.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

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.

Published abstract. Show less

To support the long-term success of underprepared students, many community colleges are experimenting with accelerated developmental education models, which allow students to complete remediation and enroll in college-level math and English within a shorter time frame. This study examines three developmental acceleration programs, including two in English and one in math. Overall, students on accelerated pathways were more likely than a set of matched peers to successfully complete the relevant college-level course within three years. However, to help maintain strong student performance within subsequent college-level courses, accelerated pathways may need to incorporate rigorous content, systematic faculty development, and targeted student supports.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less