Nebraska Indian Community College (NICC), like many other tribal colleges, is redefining success through its students. How students view success differs immensely. Each individual has a different path, strengths, challenges, and goals for their future as well as that of their tribal community. NICC's campuses are located in Macy on the Omaha…

Objective: Despite significant enrollment in community colleges, persistence and graduation rates are quite low. This study aims to better understand how students' person--environment relationships and self-organization together contribute to the persistence decisions of community college students. Using Spencer et al.'s "phenomenological…

The current research investigates the employment outcomes of Career Technical Education (CTE) from California community colleges. We used three years of data from the California Community Colleges Career Technical Education Outcomes Survey -- a survey of former community college students. We documented overall positive employment outcomes.…

With open admission policies, reasonable tuition rates, and convenient locations, community colleges are a good choice for many who want to improve their career outlooks or explore college to see whether a four-year program is for them. Yet, no matter their reason for entering, most students do not leave with a degree. For many years, federal and…

This guide presents examples and instructions for data analyses colleges can conduct to better understand student enrollments and completions in particular programs. Such analyses can help colleges scrutinize representation of historically marginalized groups in programs leading to greater opportunity after graduation. There is an equity…

High tuition makes headlines and may dissuade students from pursuing college or excluding what appear to be high-cost colleges. However, a college's "sticker price" can be misleading because it does not reflect any grant or scholarship aid that reduces the price students actually pay. As the costs of attending college have risen, the…

College student retention literature has traditionally focused on the residential university setting. Likewise, research on student service programs and intervention designed to increase persistence and completion have also focused on the four-year residential university. Limited research has been focused on students who are pursuing career…

The vast majority of students who enroll in a two-year college intend to earn a bachelor's degree. However, only about 14% transfer and earn a bachelor's degree within six years (Jenkins & Fink, 2016). The need to increase the number of bachelor's degree holders (Torpey, 2018), and the increasing number of students beginning at two-year…

Community college leaders seeking best practices to improve completion rates and student success have a strategy to consider -- experiential learning as part of a course. An accounting business course, at a mid-sized community college in the southeast, recently implemented an experiential learning activity to determine the association with…

This chapter presents results from a study exploring the experiences of rural high school graduates and the influences on their reasons for attending postsecondary education. In particular, the results presented here are a compilation of several rural students who intentionally chose to attend a local community college.

Objective: Most community colleges receiving the Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) designation have no specific mission to serve Hispanic students. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore how receiving an HSI designation affects the identity and practices of a community college. Method: Ten years of institutional documents…

This chapter explores the work to dismantle cissexism and trans discrimination through LGBT studies and the work of student groups at the City College of San Francisco, with particular emphasis on sustainable and successful practices that can be implemented within a variety of institutional contexts.

This chapter addresses the large gap in information about asexual identities, examines potential prevalence rates of asexual individuals interacting with community colleges, and equips practitioners with tools for integrating asexuality into their current LGBTQIA+ initiatives.

Many states have enacted policies to increase accountability for 2- to 4-year institutions in an effort to increase degree completion (Sponsler, Pingel, & Anderson, 2015). Reform initiatives, including Guided Pathways (Bailey, Jaggers, & Jenkins, 2015), have developed mechanisms for 2-year students to have structured, sequential course…

In response to the national call for more college degrees, many states have implemented dual enrollment programs to try to decrease the transition anxiety between high school and college. The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a significant difference in the number of students completing an Associate's degree from the college in…