Great Expectations is a Virginia Community College System program for youth who were in foster care after the age of 13. Foster youth enter college with multiple disadvantages, including being less academically prepared compared to their peers and often lacking social support for their education. A program evaluation was conducted at a specific…

At community colleges and open-enrollment universities, most first-year students take placement exams in English and mathematics to determine whether they are ready for college-level courses. But large-scale studies have indicated that these test scores misplace substantial numbers of students--in other words, for many students, the test score…

Advise TX programming, established in the 2011-12 school year, is a collaboration between the College Advising Corps and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) intended to increase students' college enrollment rates. This annual report, required by the General Appropriations Act, House Bill 1, Article III, Rider 44, 88th Texas…

The purpose of this study was to analyze whether relationships between Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) participation and community college student academic performance exist. Information from the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) was used to determine which students may otherwise qualify for SNAP benefits. The…

Objective/Research Question: Community college "Promise" programs have proliferated recently, particularly in areas with many low-income, academically struggling students. Many Promise programs restrict eligibility by high school performance but set eligibility thresholds quite low. As such they function as "low-bar" merit…

While most community colleges admit all students who apply for admission, the vast majority have required students to demonstrate specified levels of literacy and numeracy before they can take college-level courses. Typically, students have been assessed using a single placement test, such as the College Board's ACCUPLACER. Colleges--or sometimes…

North Carolina's community colleges redesigned developmental math programs in 2011. The overall effectiveness of the redesign has not yet been evaluated. A concurrent mixed-methods study was conducted at Mid-Atlantic Community College (MACC) for a formative and summative evaluation of the redesigned program. Mezirow's transformative learning…

The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effect of mobile app courseware on the college outcomes of developmental education students, using a research design which randomly assigned course sections to receive access to the apps or not. The results show that access to the apps significantly improved student performance in developmental…

The goals of placement reform and the elimination of developmental education at community colleges were to decrease the misplacement of students and to provide students with quicker access to college-level courses to improve retention and student success rates. However, the new placement reforms may be preventing some nontraditional students from…

AB705 is a landmark higher education policy that has changed approaches to developmental/remedial education in the California Community College system. We study one district that implemented reforms by placing most students in transfer-level math/English courses and encouraging enrollment in support courses based on multiple measures of academic…

Many scholars have sought to measure the effectiveness of diverse supplemental instruction programs. Nevertheless, it is difficult to generalize about supplemental instruction or compare data, given methodological and statistical incongruities and diverse approaches and student populations at various institutions. Quantitative and qualitative data…

Despite evidence suggesting that standardized tests are an imperfect measure of academic readiness, many community colleges across the country rely on them alone to determine student course placement. However, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced campuses to transition to remote operations in spring 2020, proctoring in-person placement tests became…

How should colleges determine whether students are placed into developmental or college-level courses? Each year, colleges place millions of students into developmental math and English courses upon enrollment. To do so, colleges most often use a high-stakes placement test, which numerous research studies have shown to be highly inaccurate in…

Affording living expenses presents a major barrier to degree completion for many community college students. Food, affordable housing, transportation, and childcare are central conditions for learning. Yet with stagnant incomes, rising tuition and living costs, and insufficient support from financial aid and the social safety net, approximately…

This dissertation investigates the factors influencing the matriculation trends of former College Credit Plus (CCP) participants to host institutions in Ohio, utilizing Perna's (2006) College Choice Model as a framework. The study examines variables such as course modality, geographical proximity to the host institution, course load, and grade…