A national campaign that aims to build support for tuition-free community college attracted more than 11,000 supporters within its first week — and the American Association of Community Colleges has released a toolkit to help community college leaders participate. President Barack Obama announced the College Promise Campaign during a Sept. 9 event at Macomb Community […]
Completion Articles
College Creates Its Own System to Track Student Success
If a tool you are using doesn’t serve your needs, you’re better off building a new one. That’s what the faculty and administration at South Mountain Community College (SMCC) — part of the Maricopa County Community College District, in Phoenix, Arizona — discovered last year. It all started with a group of instructors and counselors […]
Student Success and the VFA
According to the U.S. Department of Education, Jackson College (JC), in Jackson, Michigan, has a poor graduation rate: 13 percent, compared with 20 percent nationally. But that graduation rate considers only first-time, full-time, degree- or certificate-seeking students who complete in three years. Looking at graduation from this perspective ignores the reality of community colleges, from […]
The Keys to Boost Completion
Improving community college completion rates is not just a matter of opening the doors to greater access, though access is fundamentally important. Reaching that goal will also require partnering with our students to help them see what they can achieve if they take advantage of that access. An effective strategy for boosting completion must have […]
Pathways Project to Help Boost Community College Completion
Community colleges that would like help in building structured pathways to guide their students to completion have until Sept. 21 to apply for participation in a series of rigorous institutes through a multiyear effort funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Pathways Project is a major new initiative led by the American Association […]
A National Reverse-Transfer Initiative
The University of Texas at Austin and it’s main transfer-student feeder school, Austin Community College, are ground zero for the development of a national Reverse Transfer initiative that could confer associate degrees on nearly 2 million students who left a community college without a diploma. UT-Austin is leading the effort, using Texas’ successful statewide Reverse […]
Student Profile: Changing the Adult-Education Model
Editor’s Note: In today’s post, we explore how Jobs for the Future’s Accelerating Opportunity career pathways have changed the course for a student professionally and academically. “I really didn’t care in high school,” says Erin Chavez, a 25-year-old single mother in Ashland, Kentucky. In fact, she says she would often doze off after lunch. “And […]
Success Stories: Redesigning America’s Community Colleges
A decade ago, Miami Dade College (MDC) began trying to increase student success. When the college turned 50 in 2010, it renewed the effort, focusing on some of the ideas in Redesigning America’s Community Colleges: A Clearer Path to Student Success, by Thomas Bailey, Shanna Smith Jaggars and Davis Jenkins. “We began by discussing how […]
Transfer Pathways in California
A program designed to improve transfers for community college students moving to institutions in the California State University system has inspired the University of California’s Transfer Pathways, which started last month. Now California community college students have detailed course maps specifying the requirements for transferring their credits to 10 UC majors, and 11 more pathways […]
Dual Enrollment Spikes in Maryland
This article originally appeared at the Community College Daily. Significantly more Maryland high school students are earning college credit before graduating high school, according to the Maryland Association of Community Colleges (MACC). Dual enrollments at the state’s 16 community colleges jumped 20 percent in fall 2014 compared to the prior year. Dual enrollment programs allow […]