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…

This research analyzed linked high-quality state data from K-12, adult education, and postsecondary state datasets in order to better understand the association between student demographics and successful completion of a postsecondary program. Due to the relatively small sample size compared to the large number of features, we analyzed the data…

Among the diverse and varied missions of community colleges is the provision of instruction for students who have either been underserved by their previous educational institutions or not had the opportunity to complete high school. Included under this umbrella are low-performing high school students, individuals with low basic skills, and those…

This report is Iowa's response to the four questions that the United States Department of Education, Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE), requires of all states and territories receiving federal funding through the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), Title II, Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA). The overall goal of…

In this chapter, the author explores the overlap between adult literacy programs and community colleges by examining the literacy skills of postsecondary education students, the remedial/developmental programs that serve them, and the effectiveness of these programs and adult basic education in helping students succeed. As he notes, to obtain…