Community and technical colleges serve a vital function in STEM education by training workers for medium- and high-skilled technical careers and providing employers the labor necessary to operate and maintain thriving business ventures. A curriculum developed with the elements of a systems-based approach results in a program more relevant to the…

Poor completion rates in the radiation therapy associate's degree program offered through a community college did not meet the standards set by the college and damaged the program's reputation. The relationship between admission criteria and program completion was not known. The purpose of this study was to determine if there were any…

This case study attempted to discover and comprehend the relationship of students and contributing factors of success, of one Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) to Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN) program, to formulate an understanding of which contributing factors are most beneficial to enable students to persist to graduation and/or successfully…

The relationship between the supply of educated workers and the talent demands of employers is complex. Declining educational attainment levels in the US have been identified as a possible cause for the reported mismatch between the availability of talent that businesses want to hire and the talent available in the labor market, especially in the…

A college education is, for many in America, part and parcel of the American Dream, and is certainly achievable. For countless reasons, students may enroll at community colleges underprepared, unprepared, anxious, and destined for a high risk of failure. Although community colleges are higher education institutions open and accessible to all who…

Educational credentials are clearly linked to economic success, but the reasons for this link are not clear. Common theoretical approaches provide explanations but lack direct employer perspectives on credentials' meaning and the context in which employers make sense of credentials. In this study, I used an alternative perspective based in Meyer's…

Nursing is facing a critical shortage and retention of nursing students is of paramount importance. Much research has been completed related to retention in nursing education and student success, but there is very little in current literature related to issues associated with the transition from high school to associate degree nursing (ADN)…

This study presents the experiences of success of 11 women who have completed an associate degree while parenting children. Women parenting children are a population at especially high risk of non-completion. In much of the research, however, women parenting children are only mentioned peripherally as a subpopulation of nontraditional students;…

The British Columbia (BC) post-secondary system is a geographically dispersed network of colleges, institutes, university colleges, and universities. The success of such a diverse system depends on students' ability to move easily through the system, accessing the institutions, programs of study, and courses that they need and, where appropriate,…

A survey of associate- and bachelor-level graduates from a selected group of external degree programs (EDP) is described with emphasis on survey methodology. Likely employers of EDP graduates were also surveyed regarding their hiring and promotion policies in this study aimed at developing appropriate methods of assessing the acceptability and…

The 2007 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projected a need for more than one million new and replacement nurses by 2016, while higher education continues to be challenged to find methods of producing graduate satisfaction, accompanied by successful transition from college to the workplace. Some nursing programs are meeting the challenge by…

To assess the relationship between the competencies taught in ten Wisconsin two-year Associate Degree Electronic Technology programs and the competencies needed on the job, a study surveyed program graduates and employers of graduates regarding the effectiveness of the curriculum. The survey instruments were based on the 120 broad competencies…