Community colleges that are exploring ways to dramatically improve outcomes for their students frequently seek a better understanding of the relationship between two "branded" approaches receiving significant publicity: Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) and guided pathways. ASAP was created by the City University of New York…

Our new report, "Keeping the Promise: Going the Distance on Transfer Reform," has found significant improvements in the creation of a seamless transfer pathway between California Community Colleges and the California State Universities (CSU) since the passage of historic transfer reform legislation, SB1440, six years ago. This report…

In 2012, five foundations launched the Credit When Its Due (CWID) initiative that was "designed to encourage partnerships of community colleges and universities to significantly expand programs that award associate degrees to transfer students when the student completes the requirements for the associate degree while pursuing a bachelor's…

Transfer education centering on the liberal arts declined relatively beginning in the late 1960s with the expansion of vocational education. But the distinctions blurred as courses that matched university programs in business and health fields grew. By the 1970s more than half all associate degrees awarded were to students from occupational…

In 2010, California's then-governor Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 1440, called the "Student Transfer Achievement Reform Act" (Padilla, 2010), into law. This bill mandated that the state's 112 community colleges (CCCs) develop a new type of associate degree, an "associate degree for transfer," that specifically prepares a…

This newsletter from the Community College Baccalaureate Association provides research and institutional updates on community college baccalaureate degrees. The first issue introduces the organization and provides a brief description of the highly specialized four-year degrees (applied, workforce degrees) that are designed to meet the needs of…

This newsletter from the Community College Baccalaureate Association (CCBA) provides research and institutional updates on community college baccalaureate degrees. The first issue describes two institutional case studies of community college baccalaureate degree programs. The first, a manufacturing technology baccalaureate degree at Westark…

Bronx Community College created a three-year College Discovery (CD) master plan for 1998-2001 to help restructure its counseling programs and support services and enable CD students to acquire an associate's degree level of education. The first area of restructuring is in the role of the director of College Discovery and Counseling. General…

Two major issues in contemporary higher education include equality of access to education and the adequate preparation of graduates for entry into the workforce. Both of these goals are central to the tech prep/associate degree (TPAD) initiative. TPAD combines competency-based teaching, applied learning, curricula focusing on technical and…

This resource guide/workbook is designed to show how to form and operate a tech prep/associate degree (TPAD) consortium. It contains 20 activity-oriented units that can be used by the planning teams to put the consortium together and get it running. Each unit may contain descriptive material (or scenarios), guidelines, resources, suggestions,…

This program guide for educators outlines how the tech prep program has evolved in Rhode Island, the type of students most likely to benefit from the program, and how the program works. It begins with tech prep success stories, tech prep associate degree activity timeline, and director of Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI) Tech Prep…

This student handbook begins with an introduction to and rationale for the Rhode Island Tech Prep Associate Degree Program. Tech prep student success stories are followed by two sections that discuss why the student needs a tech prep program and what the Rhode Island Tech Prep Associate Degree Program is. Benefits that tech prep students enjoy are…

The Rhode Island Tech Prep Associate Degree Program is a statewide partnership between the Community College of Rhode Island, 70 percent of the high schools in the state, and the business community. It targets students enrolled in unfocused general education programs in high schools and involves them in an applied course of study in mathematics,…

This implementation guide contains information based on experiences that occurred during the development and implementation of the Rhode Island Tech Prep Model. It is intended to assist educators in addressing challenges and obstacles faced by the program early in the planning process. It begins with a rationale for tech prep. Rhode Island…