Many students who enter college do not finish, reflecting numerous academic, financial, and social barriers to postsecondary completion. Success Boston Coaching (SBC) provides students in the Greater Boston area with coaching during their first 2 years of college to help them overcome barriers to postsecondary completion and connect them to…

Do older community college students build momentum toward graduation differently than their younger peers? One-third of students in community colleges are 25 years of age or older, and these students tend to have lower rates of graduation than their younger peers. Yet, we know little about how the factors that influence college graduation differ…

A bachelor's degree is increasingly necessary for securing a job that pays a family-supporting wage, yet while most community college students aspire to transfer and complete a bachelor's degree, too few make it through to this goal. This report, along with the companion report on four-year institutional outcomes, is designed to be used by…

A bachelor's degree is increasingly necessary for securing a job that pays a family-supporting wage, yet while most community college students aspire to transfer and complete a bachelor's degree, too few make it through to this goal. As is clear from the companion report on community college transfer outcomes, some responsibility for this lies…

A typical bachelor's degree within the Utah System of Higher Education (USHE) requires 120 credit hours while a typical associate degree requires 60. If a student enrolls in 15 credit hours per semester, it would take them a total of eight semesters to complete 120 credit hours for a bachelor's degree and four semesters to complete 60 credit hours…

This chapter describes the role microcredentials can play within the context of guided pathways and degree completion, illustrated through three case studies of community colleges and systems.

This study aimed to understand the barriers that two-year college students face that prevent graduation and the possible intervention program to assist them with overcoming these barriers. The perceptions of academic advisors working at a two-year college were gained in the areas of barriers related to environmental factors, social integration,…

"The Laboring Scholar: Community College Geographies and the Politics of Care" is an institutional ethnography that investigates the personal, political, and economic costs to student caregivers seeking a college degree. Through a critical analysis of student interviews and a close examination of community college structures and…

With community colleges struggling with the completion rates of their students, it is important to understand the social and academic integration of community college students and their relationships to retention and completion. Research focuses on the critical role of internal college actors such as faculty, staff, and students in these…

Data in this report reflect responses from 296 four-year and two-year colleges and universities that collectively enroll approximately 1,700,000 undergraduate students (according to data reported to IPEDS). Respondents participated in the Ruffalo Noel Levitz (RNL) national electronic poll of Effective Practices for Student Success, Retention, and…

We estimate labor market returns to terminal associate's degrees and certificates, with a particular focus on how returns for different credential types evolve over a longer period of time (eleven years post entry) than most of the prior literature. We also explore how returns vary depending on labor market conditions and on which labor market…

Graduating from college is a challenge, particularly for low-income students and students who are older, have children, or have jobs. Such students oen face personal, institutional, and structural barriers to success. Two of the most important factors that predict whether students will graduate from community college are the number of credits they…

Despite significant contributions to healthcare made by male nurses throughout the centuries, nursing is a female-dominated profession, creating challenges for male nursing students. The problem addressed in this study was that male nursing students experience challenges that impede their success toward completing their urban Midwest community…

The increasing number of part time instructors in the community college professorate combined with low student retention and graduation rates makes research into part time faculty and student success highly germane. My dissertation investigated if higher ratios of adjunct faculty were related to student retention, certificate/degree attainment,…

Given the changing demographics of the Latino population in the United States, the purpose of this study is to analyze persistence, graduation and transfer among Latino students at community colleges. The research comes in response to the awareness that, despite the U.S.'s rapidly growing Latino population, Latinos have the lowest higher education…