Since the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) launched the Voluntary Framework of Accountability (VFA) in 2011, accountability measures have sprung up in just about every corner of higher education. There is the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), the National Governors Association's Complete to Compete program,…

By 2020, 65 percent of all jobs in the economy will require postsecondary education and training beyond high school. That's a pretty strong statement in defense of the value of higher education in this country. But it will mean little unless the nation's colleges and universities--and, specifically, community colleges--can produce more workers…

"The Road to Recovery: Projecting U.S. Job Growth and Higher Education Demand through 2020" (this issue, p26-29) presented six key indicators that highlighted the latest in education and employment needs for the success of the future jobs market. While the U.S. economy is growing, questions still remain: What skills do employers value…

Neosho County Community College, is a small college in Kansas. It set out to measure outcomes in every course, program, and in general education. It wound up creating a simple, elegant, inexpensive, faculty-driven system that transformed the college culture from an emphasis on what was being taught to what was being learned.

Private for-profit institutions have been the fastest growing part of the U.S. higher education sector. For-profit enrollment increased from 0.2 percent to 9.1 percent of total enrollment in degree-granting schools from 1970 to 2009, and for-profit institutions account for the majority of enrollments in non-degree granting postsecondary schools.…

Colleges and universities throughout the country are increasingly coming under pressure from accrediting institutions and legislative bodies to implement comprehensive outcomes assessment initiatives designed to measure and document student performance. Over the past ten years pressure has been directed towards colleges to reshape their current…

This report presents information on the academic achievement of students who transferred from Tidewater Community College (TCC) (Virginia) to four-year institutions. Based on student data from 1994-1996, and the results of a transfer survey of students entering four-year institutions in 1995-1996, statistics are provided that include: (1) between…

Proposes that higher education, particularly community colleges, be evaluated not solely on institutions' functional merits or impact on student income but on their value in developing active citizens. Of special significance is the finding that community college attendance is associated with an increased sense of self-empowerment, and may offer…

A study was conducted in December 1994 at Miami-Dade Community College (M-DCC), in Florida, to determine the current educational status of Associate in Arts (AA) and Associate in Science (AS) students identified as leavers in 1991-92. Results showed that of 8,475 M-DCC leavers: (1) 36% were considered to be employed in the state since they could…

This document addresses transfer destinations of CCSF students by tracking students that transferred from community colleges between the Summer 1997 and Spring 2001 terms. Overall, 72,053 students were tracked during the study. A majority (87%) of these students transferred to public schools while a minority (13%) transferred to private schools.…

The performance types, concerns, policy values, and models of excellence implied in higher education performance reporting indicators are identified, and the use of performance measures by two- and four-year campuses are compared. (EV)

This article demonstrates the sometimes compromised techniques involved in data collection and their subsequent reporting capabilities. To illustrate this point, a joint venture between the community colleges of Missouri, the Coordinating Board of Higher Education, and a national testing corporation completed a project assessing student outcomes.…

A system to provide objective measures of institutional effectiveness was implemented at the Roswell branch of Eastern New Mexico University to determine whether the college was accountable to students, staff, and taxpayers; to improve the curriculum and programs; and to prepare for accreditation review in 1991. A task force spent the summer of…

This annual report from the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, Western Association of Schools and Colleges (ACCJC) contains information on commission activities during 2000-2001. One of ACCJC's top priorities was Project Renewal, a "360-degree" examination of the commission and all of its operations. For this peer-based…

Recent research indicates that college students who transfer from community colleges are significantly less likely to complete a 4-year college degree than students who begin at 4-year institutions. This paper estimates models of college completion for both types of students. Based on these results, an Oaxaca decomposition indicates that students…