Editor’s Note: Yesterday’s post highlighted City University of New York’s successful completion program for students who start in remedial classes in community college. It is quickly becoming a model for colleges across the country, having demonstrated what can be accomplished when students are provided financial and academic support to reach their educational goals. In today’s post, […]

Sometimes, the response to a trial reform measure is so quick and so clear that it makes sense to fast track its adoption as a permanent fixture. Just three weeks into the first quarter of Bellevue College’s pilot competency-based online certificate program for business software specialists, instructors were receiving messages from students, wishing they could […]

In the 2013–14 school year, Maricopa Community Colleges had about 23,000 students who left without receiving an associate degree. Yet it’s estimated that some 16,000 of those students transferred to one of three public universities — Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University or the University of Arizona — and have already earned enough credits for […]

Pennsylvania hopes to boost completion rates in the state’s 14 community colleges with its new prior-learning recognition program, College Credit FastTrack (CCFT). Backed by a $2.5 million U.S. Department of Labor grant, the initiative will help qualified adult students earn their degrees more quickly and less expensively. “We are new to this,” says Mary Frances […]

The conventional 15 credits per semester may be the path to completion for some community college students but it’s not that way for all. While students fresh out of high school probably benefit from full-time enrollment in college, a recent national study shows that non-first-time (NFT) students find more success when they can combine both […]

The reason many high-achieving community college students don’t transfer to competitive four-year institutions is not because they lack the ability or desire but because they don’t have the resources and support. So says a recent report from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, which awards college scholarships to high-achieving low-income students. The January 2015 report, Breaking Down Walls: Increasing Access […]

More often than not, improving student success at community colleges requires institutional culture change, if not outright transformational change. A recent report shines a light on nine community colleges that are in the midst of making major changes in their quest to seriously move the needle on student completion. Policy Meets Pathways: A State Policy […]

In 2011, California’s 112 community colleges were at capacity and budgets were shrinking. Instead of focusing on the problem, the California Community Colleges Board of Governors asked for a solution — one that would increase student success while maintaining access. That solution seems to be working. According to the recently released California Community Colleges 2014 State of […]

Paying for tuition is a struggle for many community college students. Unfortunately, major college expenses don’t end with tuition: Textbooks can cost upward of $600 each semester. For students who are already financially tapped out, textbook costs can be the reason they drop out. McHenry County College (MCC) in Crystal Lake, Ill., doesn’t want the high […]

Almost two decades ago, the proverbial writing was on the wall for Texas higher-education officials. Student demographics in public K-12 were dramatically changing, with the share of minorities and low-income students rising quickly. Traditionally, these populations have been underserved in the state’s higher-education system. “We were aware that the future of Texas was going to […]