The community college tuition and fees report is prepared each fiscal year. The report includes trends in tuition and fees among Iowa's community colleges, as well as comparisons to Iowa's public universities and national comparisons. Average total in-state cost of enrollment for a full-time student enrolled in Iowa's community colleges will be…

Ensuring that community colleges can better support students in pursuit and completion of college credentials is a central focus of the American Association of Community Colleges' 21st-Century Commission on the Future of Community Colleges. Recently, many institutions have worked to improve the college entry experience, but too often, student…

This is the second article in a three-part series on reimagining the community college student experience, describing a new model for academic pathways, key design principles, examples from colleges leading the way, and implementation challenges. Community colleges are beginning to embrace the task of reimagining students' educational experiences.…

Educators assert that academic advising before and after transferring enhances the success of baccalaureate degree-seeking students who begin at community colleges. Yet, there is little research that investigates the kinds of advising that are differentially important to pre- versus posttransfer students. In this study, we examined the importance…

As the U.S. continues to embrace a comprehensive plan for economic recovery, this article investigates the validity of the claim that investing in higher education will help restore state economic growth and prosperity. It presents the findings from a study that indicates that the most consistent predictors of state economic growth related to…

This study discusses a method to promote raising critical consciousness in the English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom via creative writing activities by having students write journals and/or personal letters from the perspective of individuals from outside groups that have been marginalized or vilified in the students' dominant culture.…

Associates of Applied Science (AAS) degrees were once considered terminal degrees and were developed for people seeking technical skills to join the workforce. This paper discusses the transformation from a transferable degree into technical four-year baccalaureate degree. It also discusses survey results of students currently in a degree…

Increasing the representation of students of color in STEM is vital to the United States' workforce. It is projected that minorities will represent half of the resident U.S population by 2050. Consequently, a large portion of STEM talent lies within the student of color population. With a large representation of students of color entering HBCUs,…

Assessment activities have proliferated over the last decade at institutions of higher education. While assessment is useful for institutional improvement, this proliferation has in part been due to greater pressures from regional accreditors on institutions to meet assessment requirements. These higher expectations have led to new expenditures on…

Many community colleges consider online learning central to the mission of providing adults with access to academic, professional, and personal enrichment opportunities; however, the issue of student success in the online learning environment remains an area of concern. The low rate of online course completion in community colleges may be…

This interpretive study examined the curriculum implemented in a developmental reading course at a community college. Approaching curriculum as a three layered construct, (Cohen, 1990; Hartell, 2012; Mendez, 2010; Page, 1991; Page, 1999), I described classroom lessons to understand how the formal curriculum was translated by students and teachers.…

Community colleges are disproportionally over-enrolled with both low income students and students of color, while four-year institutions are under-enrolled with the same groups. The vast majority of these students enter the community college with a goal of transferring to the four-year institutions they were unable to access from high school, yet…

The purpose of this study was to determine a student's computer knowledge upon course entry and if there was a difference in college students' improvement scores as measured by the difference in pretest and posttest scores of new or novice users, moderate users, and expert users at the end of a college-level introductory computing class. This…

Community colleges have multiple missions and one of them is to provide open access services to those seeking to further their education. Community colleges provide remedial courses in math, reading, and writing because many of their students do not meet entrance requirements in these core subjects. However, the usual developmental education track…

New survey data from employers and community college students raise important questions about the state of online education today. Both groups remain skeptical about the value of this fast-spreading mode of learning. Important findings from this research include the following:(1) Most employers would prefer a job applicant with a traditional…