A survey of 2,574 students and 1,157 faculty members across ten institutions of postsecondary education in the state of Utah was conducted by the "Utah Academic Libraries Consortium." Survey items were created to understand the influence of textbook costs on student academic behavior and the viability of faculty adopting open educational…

Scientific expertise is manifested through extensive cycles of making and acting on decisions. To learn the processes and practices of science, therefore, students must have practice with scientific decision making. We argue that this can only happen if students are afforded agency: the opportunity to make decisions to pursue a goal. In this…

This paper examines the Oregon Promise, a state-level program that exclusively subsidizes in-state community college attendance. I estimate impacts using a difference-in-difference design that links students in states with essentially universal 10th-grade PSAT coverage to national-level postsecondary enrollment data. I find that the implementation…

We investigate the relationship between college openings, college attainment, and health behaviors and outcomes later in life. Though a large prior literature attempts to isolate the causal effect of education on health via instrumental variables (IV), most studies use instruments that affect schooling behavior in childhood or adolescence, i.e.…

The Hispanic-serving community colleges STEM Pipelines (HSCC-STEM) study is a research project that explores the transitions to and through Hispanic-serving two-year institutions for underrepresented minoritized STEM students. This brief uncovers the most viable HSCC STEM pathways for Latinxs and other underrepresented minoritized students as well…

The Hispanic-Serving Community Colleges STEM Pipelines (HSCC-STEM) study is a research project that explores the transitions to and through Hispanic-serving two-year institutions for underrepresented minoritized STEM students. This brief uncovers the most viable HSCC STEM pathways for Latinxs and other underrepresented minoritized students as well…

The purpose of this study is to understand the personal impact of first-generation community college students of color have after taking a psychology course. This research study focused on studying groups of people who were excluded from past research and were missing during the literature gap. This qualitative study examined the general impact…

This brief is part of a broad landscape analysis focused on policy and practice issues related to the recognition of prior learning. The landscape analysis focuses on issues arising in the practice of the recognition of prior learning, policies that encourage or limit its adoption, and key research needs and future directions for the field. This…

This dissertation examines performance-based funding policies in higher education. Performance-based funding policies allocate state funding via student outcomes instead of by student enrollments. The first paper in this dissertation provides an in-depth analysis of Ohio's performance-based funding policy for two-year institutions. Then, the…

Contextualization refers to "a diverse family of instructional strategies designed to more seamlessly link the learning of foundational skills and academic or occupational content by focusing teaching and learning squarely on concrete applications in a specific context that is of interest to the student" (Mazzeo, 2008, p. 3). In…

This article explores the application of science identity development theory for women of color interested in the science disciplines; and it advocates for taking an intersectional approach to understanding how women of color form science identities. The article also challenges community college administrators and scholars to focus on redefining…

For the past few decades, the trend of first generation low-economic status community college students, considerably comprised of immigrants, has continued to grow at a significant rate (Connell, 2008; Ray, 2013; Kim & Diaz, 2013c; Kim, 2014). Community colleges are encountering challenges that were previously viewed as minimal or secondary to…

Washington Student Achievement Council (WSAC) coordinated the development and administration of the Washington Student Experience Survey (WSES) in 2022 as a response to research showing that unmet basic needs represent an increasing barrier to the success of higher education students. This survey collected census-level data on basic needs security…

The District has received the fiscal year 2024 (FY24) high school graduates' college matriculation data from the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC). The Department of Research, Evaluation, & Assessment (DREA) has performed a preliminary analysis of college enrollment for students who graduated from the District between FY20 and FY24,…

The purpose of this mixed methods research study was to explore the practice of academic advising and the challenges associated with virtual advising in California higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Advising is a retention practice recognized as critical to student success because advisors are one of few personnel interactions students…