With nearly half the states having authorized community colleges to award baccalaureate degrees, the community college baccalaureate (CCB) has become an increasingly common feature of the landscape of American higher education. While there has been an expansion of research on the CCB in recent years, the research to date consists mainly of studies…

In this dissertation, I present an examination of the economics of education through three chapters. In the first paper, I study the overrepresentation of elite university graduates in senior positions in public administration. Using rich administrative data from Chile, I employ a stacked fuzzy regression discontinuity design to estimate the…

This chapter provides individual and institutional strategies for confronting the historical challenges facing community college faculty, especially the prestige model, mission ambiguity, and declining resources.

Community colleges, known for their open access and inclusion, have seen consistent enrollment declines for several years. At Outward Flats Community College, the research setting in this study, student enrollment has consistently declined and a widening admission yield gap between students of color and white students occurred. The researcher…

There has been growing national political interest in promoting community college education as a way of improving economic opportunities for disadvantages members of local workforces. Recent work mainly focuses on human capital gains, but few studies have investigated how community college credentials can affect the level of job prestige…

Institutions of higher learning today rely on tuition dollars to function. During a time when the pool of high school graduates is shrinking, colleges and universities must look to alternative target markets to meet enrollment goals, including those transferring from community college. Community college transfers have unique attributes that…

Leaders in four-year, public and private institutions have implemented international branch campuses to potentially increase revenue and promote institutional prestige. Although these efforts have received significant attention, they have not always been successful. Studies have identified the reputational risks often associated with international…

Using archival records preserved by Iowa's community colleges, private four-year colleges, and public universities, this dissertation examines how Iowa's established higher education institutions responded to and adjusted to the "presence" of new two-year colleges from 1965 to 1975. This decade was a critical period of development for…

This qualitative case study uses Wartman's (2014) Guiding Principles for High Level Searches to investigate the executive selection process. The study explores how members of the search committee, governing board, and search consultant perceive the method a community college used to select its permanent president. To examine the process, one…

The concept of branding holds the key to achieving organizational goals by determining the needs and wants of target markets (Nicolescu, 2009). The brand of a community college is influenced by the interactions these individuals have on campus or in public with college administrators, faculty, and staff (Black, 2008). As a result it is imperative…

The purpose of the research was to discover the views of three groups of International students who were undertaking their Higher Education (HE) in a publicly-funded college, rather than a university setting. A comparative survey was undertaken by International students attending an American Community College, an Australian Technical and Further…

I examine what the characteristics of competitive community colleges are and how the ranking systems identify the ideal qualities of community colleges through a comparison of community colleges to prestigious four-year institutions. I provide information regarding the institutional differences and the characteristics of top-ranked community…

With the number of transfer students increasing and graduation still an elusive goal, the researchers conducted four focus groups and four individual interviews with transfer students attending universities in the Chicago and Dallas-Fort Worth area to better understand and explore the factors that influenced their college choice decisions at their…

Adult students (age 25 and older) make up almost 40 percent of the national undergraduate population. Since they are often balancing their college experience with work, family, and other responsibilities, adult students may have different priorities and challenges. What can campuses do to serve these students better and help more of them succeed?…

Higher education has seen significant changes in the student experience in the past 10 years. For the past decade, everything from student attitudes about college to the technology they use every day has impacted their satisfaction with, and perception of, the college experience. This report is a comparison of student satisfaction, separated by 10…