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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.

Edited excerpts from publication. Show less

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