This brief from the Belk Center for Community College Leadership and Research shares key processes and findings from Stanly Community College as they implemented contextualized English courses. Research suggests that when learners are presented course readings and assignments in English composition classes that are pertinent to their field of…

This paper presents a qualitative study that used student interviews to investigate the influence of non-cognitive barriers on developmental student success in a corequisite first-year composition course that was offered on line following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Students answered open-ended questions about their previous educational…

Hundreds of community colleges exist in rural contexts across the United States, yet we know little about the work and career development of the thousands of faculty employed at such institutions. Through a review of current literature, this article demonstrates how faculty at rural community colleges encounter specific factors in their…

In this report, the authors use Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) data to classify the 1.425 million degrees and certificates that community colleges awarded in academic year 2022-23 by intent (i.e., whether the program is designed to enable students to enter the workforce, transfer to a bachelor's degree program, or explore…

This study examined Generation Z students enrolled in a California community college in 2021. The first generation to be born into an internet-connected world, this cohort of individuals, born between 1995 and 2010, is attending college now and will continue to enter colleges for the next decade. Data related to the educational barriers to their…

College athletes at the community college level, specifically athletes of color, may experience unique threats to their belonging along multiple dimensions, including but not limited to academic spaces of learning, assessing their athletic merit by comparing themselves to Division I athletes, and racialized tensions within white-centric campuses.…

Our preliminary experiment examined a potential pain point with ASSIST, California's database of articulation agreements. That pain point is cross-referencing multiple articulation agreements to manually develop an "optimal" academic plan. Optimal is defined as the minimal set of community college courses that satisfy all transfer…

The California Community Colleges California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) Program provides education, training, support services and job opportunities to individuals receiving CalWORKs services from the county. CalWORKs program funds are for the purpose of assisting individuals in achieving long-term self-sufficiency…

Chapter 54 of the Statutes of 2022 (AB 183) allocated $30,000,000 to establish the California Community Colleges (CCC) "Native American Student Support and Success Program" (NASSSP) for the purpose of: (1) strengthening K-12 pathways to and through the CCC system for Native American students; (2) ensuring the educational success of…

Objective/Research Question: The purpose of this study was to explore effective predictors of student success through examining concurrent and predictive validity evidence for the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) engagement indicators using data from three community colleges (CC) in North Carolina. Methods: We obtained a…

The RP Group's Multiple Measures Assessment Project (MMAP) regularly examines the impact of AB 705 -- landmark legislation designed to increase students' access to and success in transfer-level English and math across the California Community Colleges. As part of the analysis, the report looks at whether the legislation is having an equal impact…

Community colleges were established as affordable postsecondary education opportunities for all residents within their local areas. Typical measures of access to postsecondary institutions use binary indicators based on the presence of institutions within geographic areas or straight-line distance between student residences and college locations…

Widening access and participation feature prominently in higher education policy globally, and there are now significant academic communities engaged with implementing and interrogating initiatives aimed towards these goals. Despite an apparent global homogeneity in the use of this terminology, this study explores whether differing structural…

With 1.8 million students, California Community Colleges (CCC) are often the primary point of access to higher education for low-income, Black, and Latino students. Given the role of community colleges in creating a strong pipeline of college graduates, improving transfer rates to four-year colleges has become an increasingly important policy…

Objective: This study examines whether there are differences among first-generation and continuing-generation community college students in the importance they place on achieving college-related goals and difficulties they face from college- and other life-related challenges. Methods: Data were drawn from the "Community College Libraries and…