Document Tag: community college

Supporting Community College Completion with a Culture of Caring: A Case Study of Amarillo College (2018)

This report is an in-depth case study of the No Excuses Poverty Initiative at Amarillo College (AC), a midsize community college in the Texas Panhandle. Nearly a decade ago, AC’s leadership initiated a reflective and intentional series of steps to help alleviate the conditions of poverty affecting their students and promote the chances those students complete their degrees. The college has received widespread press and recognition for its work. This case study is the first intensive, evidence-based examination of that initiative, its key components, and its impact on student success.

Challenges and Opportunities for Improving Community College Student Success (2010)

Many of the democratizing opportunities provided by community colleges are
diminished in the eyes of policy makers by inadequate rates of success. In
particular, large proportions of students who enter community colleges do
not persist for longer than a semester, complete a program, or attain a credential.
This review critically examines academic and policy research in
search of explanations, emphasizing what is known about challenges stemming
from three levels of influence: the macro-level opportunity structure;
institutional practices; and the social, economic, and academic attributes
students bring to college. It provides examples of how factors operating at
each level affect rates of success at key times, including the initial transition
to college, the experience of remedial education, and persistence through
credit-bearing coursework. The article also discusses potential and ongoing
reforms that could increase rates of community college success by addressing
one or more areas of influence (the macro, the institutional, or the individual).
It is concluded that increasing success in the open-access, public 2-year
sector requires reforms directed at multiple levels and cannot be achieved
with either student- or institution-focused incentives alone.

Accountability for Community Colleges: Moving Forward (2010)

Recent calls for increased investments in postsecondary education
have been accompanied by demands for greater accountability from
colleges and universities. It is politically difficult in a time of scarce
resources to allocate new funds without requiring measurable outcomes
in return. At the same time, effective accountability systems in education
are rare. Therefore, in this chapter I consider the potential for successfully
framing and enacting accountability frameworks for community
colleges. I argue that the usual approach to accountability requires substantial
reform if it stands any chance of succeeding in this sector, but
that success is possible and likely.

The Community College Effect Revisited: The Importance of Attending to Heterogeneity and Complex Counterfactuals (2012)

Community colleges are controversial educational institutions, often said to simultaneously expand college opportunities and diminish baccalaureate attainment. We assess the seemingly contradictory functions of community colleges by attending to effect heterogeneity and alternative counterfactual conditions. Using data on postsecondary outcomes of high school graduates of Chicago Public Schools, we find that enrolling at a community college penalizes more advantaged students who otherwise would have attended four-year colleges, particularly highly selective schools; however, these students represent a relatively small portion of the community college population, and these estimates are almost certainly biased. On the other hand, enrolling at a community college has a modest positive effect on bachelor’s degree completion for disadvantaged students who otherwise would not have attended college; these students represent the majority of community college-goers. We conclude that discussions among scholars, policymakers, and practitioners should move beyond considering the pros and cons of community college attendance for students in general to attending to the implications of community college attendance for targeted groups of students.