Because of their open enrollment policies, community colleges serve large numbers of students whose K-12 education has left them unready to succeed in college-level courses. Colleges typically use test scores such as the ACT to place students into appropriate course levels. However, the use of test-based measures alone has been criticized as being…

A continuing priority in education has focused on preparing students for postacademic success. The adoption of the Common Core State Standards Initiative prompted educational leaders to focus on preparing students to be "college and career ready." Definitions, perceptions, and efforts to improve college and career readiness vary widely.…

With the increase of technology in day-to-day lives, online college education is sweeping the nation as numbers of students enrolling online is consistently on the rise. Unfortunately, because of the nature of open enrollment at the community college level, students often enroll without necessary skills to be successful at the college level,…

The purpose of this descriptive, quantitative study is to explore the matriculation rates for first-time, full-time freshmen who were previously enrolled in dual enrollment courses while in high school at one of the 13 public community colleges in Tennessee. Percentages, means, standard deviations, ranges, percentages, and proportions were used to…

The first wave of Tennessee Promise students arrived in Fall 2015, when 13,287 Promise students enrolled at community colleges. By Fall 2017, after five semesters of eligibility, 21.5% of these students had graduated, compared to 13.8% of students from the pre-Promise 2014 cohort. The second cohort of Tennessee Promise students enrolled at…

Community colleges began as a way to offer higher education to those that wanted it but could not leave home to further their degree. As they evolved, they began allowing students to be admitted with very little admission requirements. The lack of admission requirements led to students being admitted into community colleges that were not prepared…

This summary explores key findings about the participation and success of Promise students at Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) colleges. The number of first-time, full-time students enrolling at community colleges rose significantly in the first year of Promise and has remained high ever since. However, much of the enrollment growth occurred among…

One explanation for negative or null findings in prior research on postsecondary remediation is that college may be too late to address issues of academic underpreparedness. This study evaluates the impact on student outcomes when college math remediation is offered in the senior year of high school. The Seamless Alignment and Integrated Learning…

California Assembly Bill (AB) 705 authored by Irwin and passed on October 13, 2017, requires colleges to "maximize the probability that a student will enter and complete transfer-level coursework in English and math within a one-year timeframe" and use high school background data in placement processes. To implement this new law and…

American colleges are redesigning the ways in which they offer remedial courses, including mainstreaming students into college-level courses and making greater use of learning-technology to tailor the curriculum to students' specific academic needs. Exploiting a statewide cutoff on a remediation placement exam along with data on student outcomes…

This year's "Tennessee Higher Education Fact Book" consists of four sections and an appendix of additional resources and terminology. The four main sections of the report provide data on Student Participation, Student Success, Academic and Fiscal Trends, and Outcomes-Based Funding. New this year, the report includes additional detail on…

Colleges throughout the United States are evaluating the effectiveness of their strategies to place entering students into college-level or developmental education courses. Developmental, or remedial, courses are designed to advance the reading, writing, and math skills of students who are deemed academically underprepared for college-level…

Community college administrators face a dilemma in the implementation of placement policies regarding college algebra students. Extensive literature devoted to this subject has been generated in the last 100 years without consensus. Furthermore, faculty opinions of the current placement policies contribute to the presence of a discrepancy in the…

Tennessee's public community college system implemented corequisite remediation for underprepared students during the Fall 2015 semester. As a result of the Tennessee Board of Regents corequisite remediation initiative, students with academic placement scores determined to be below college level on an instrument such as the ACT often work in the…

ACT is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to help people achieve education and workplace success. To help fulfill that mission, ACT offers school-day testing programs that provide all students with state- or district-funded access to its college readiness and admissions assessment, removing barriers to testing and opening doors to…