According to the National Center for Education Statistics (Aud et al., 2013), only 10.6% of students who started at a two-year institution in the 2003-2004 year successfully completed a baccalaureate degree from a four-year institution within six years. Two- and four-year institutions are looking for new strategies to improve transfer student…

Community college leaders today must contend with a formidable challenge: dwindling state funding and declining resources. Increased enrollments without proportional increases in state and local financial support have placed colleges in the unenviable position of needing to do more with less--or in some cases, simply do less. Despite the…

This supplemental report expands on the findings of the 2010 National Freshman Attitudes Report from Noel-Levitz by examining the wide-ranging attitudes and motivations of incoming, first-year students at two-year community, junior, career, and technical colleges. Specifically, this report contrasts the attitudes of: (1) Adult versus…

In January 2010, the General Assembly passed the Complete College Tennessee Act (CCTA), a comprehensive reform agenda seeking to transform public higher education through changes in academic, fiscal, and administrative policies at the state and institutional levels. While the higher education landscape has been shaped by the CCTA, it is also…

The purpose of this phenomenological case study was to understand the experiences of older students' use of web-based student services in a community college setting. For the purpose of this study the term "older student" was defined as people born between the years 1943 and 1960. This group of people, often described as the Baby Boomer…

The purpose of this non-experimental, quantitative study was to determine how well selected institutional characteristics explain the variance in Hispanic community college students' transfer rates to 4-year institutions. Due to the rapidly growing Texas Hispanic population, understanding challenges to their educational attainment has become…

More students now begin their postsecondary education at the two-year college level with the intention of transferring to earn a bachelor's degree, making the transfer function more important. Recent government mandates in Kentucky brought about new programming efforts to aid student transitions between public institutions. This study was designed…

This document is one of two appendices to the 2012 National Student Satisfaction and Priorities Report. These appendices focus on the Student Satisfaction Inventory Form A and Institutional Priorities Survey results for: (1) Community, junior, and technical colleges; and (2) Career and private schools. The data for four-year private and four-year…

This "First Look" presents findings from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) spring 2011 data collection. This collection included five components: Student Financial Aid for the 2009-10 academic year; Enrollment for fall 2010; Graduation Rates within 150 percent of normal program completion time for full-time,…

This qualitative multi-case study identified institutional structures and assessment processes that support general education learning outcomes assessment initiatives at three community colleges accredited by the Higher Learning Commission under the Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP). In support of this purpose, data collection involved…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how adult college women attending rural community colleges experience being an online student. A study of this nature was warranted as enrollment in online courses continues to increase (Allen & Seaman, 2010) and as women are more likely to enroll in online courses (Kramarae, 2001; van…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe and compare the demographic trends from 2002 to 2010 of students who completed marketable skills programs at Texas community colleges. In addition, the extent to which statistically significant changes occurred in the ethnic and gender diversity of MSAA completers from 2002 to 2010 was reviewed.…

Since 1979, the American Samoa Department of Education and the University of Hawai'i have partnered to provide education and training for American Samoan teachers. Beginning in 2009, these efforts have focused on teachers in the middle grades. This article describes the context, program structure, and implementation of a graduate degree program in…

This study examines the influence of a conceptually valid mentoring experience on community college students' persistence decisions. Participants were selected from a random sample of core courses offered in the fall of 2006 at a community college in the south-central area of the United States (n = 320). Results of the structural equation modeling…

As the market for online communications evolves, it's hard to blame college administrators for feeling a bit deluged. Gone are the days of traditional media, where communications professionals relied on newspapers and print and radio advertising to recruit students and tell their stories. With more students embracing technology today--particularly…