This report summarizes fall enrollment in Iowa's community colleges. Every year, Iowa's 15 community college districts submit data on the tenth business day of the fall semester. This report summarizes several aspects of community college enrollment from fall 2013. Highlights from this report include: (1) Fall 2013 enrollment was 94,234 students,…

The purpose of this study is to identify how low-SES women who are providing primary childcare for children ages 0-10 experience higher education. In-depth phenomenological interviewing combined with document analysis were the methods utilized. This exploration used a purposive/snowball sample of low-SES mothers who were making satisfactory…

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. The average tuition for a full-time student enrolled in Iowa's community colleges will rise $113 to $4,210 in…

The main purpose of this study was to examine the effects of Problem-Solving Strategy Steps (PSSS) on students' achievement, skill, and confidence. The study was conducted in a two-year college classroom with 70 students from two different groups enrolled in a physics course. One of them was randomly selected as an experimental group (EG) and the…

It is an established fact that in the United States there is a great need to improve the scientific literacy of undergraduate students, especially those who are nonscience majors. Data presented herein suggest that using simple art concepts can assist nonscience majors in better appreciating scientific facts related to chemistry. However, it is…

According to self-determination theory, social contexts that support students' basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness foster motivation toward behaviors that are valued in that social context. This study investigated the socio-contextual elements of a learning environment that support or undermine students' basic…

Data from the Community College Student Experiences Questionnaire were analyzed for a sample of 315 Black women attending community colleges. Specifically, we conducted multivariate analyses to assess the relationship between background traits, commitments, engagement, academic performance, and satisfaction for Black women at community colleges.…

Little is known about the complex patterning of weight-related health behaviors in 2-and 4-year college students. The objective of this study was to identify and describe unique classes of weight-related health behaviors among college students. Latent class analysis was used to identify homogenous, mutually exclusive classes of nine health…

Summer research experiences have been identified as important vehicles for fostering the learning, skill development, and retention of undergraduates in the sciences. In this initiative, community college faculty and students partnered with private 4-year college colleagues on summer research in order to expand the capacity for research for…

Efforts to increase the number of women who pursue and complete advanced degrees in computer and information sciences (CIS) have been limited, in part, by a lack of research on pathways into and out of community college CIS classes. This longitudinal study tests three widely held beliefs about how to increase the number of CIS majors at 4-year…

Community colleges are an increasingly important component of the higher education systems in the United States. Community college as a pathway toward a better educated workforce has been emphasized at a national and state level. Virginia's policy makers set an ambitious goal of producing 100,000 new baccalaureate degrees in the Commonwealth by…

Many students in secondary and post-secondary institutions generally have a difficult time grasping the concepts of accounting. This article contends that it is not the subject matter that is dry, but rather the methods in which faculty have traditionally presented accounting fundamentals and principles. Departing from standard lectures and…

Arkansas Department of Higher Education data show that approximately 75% of Arkansas community college students are required to take at least one developmental education class (Arkansas Higher Education Coordinating Board, 2012, p.7.2). This is significantly higher than the approximately 30% average (Provasnik & Planty, 2008, p.11) of…

Postsecondary education yields myriad benefits, including increased earnings potential, higher lifetime wages, and access to quality jobs. But postsecondary degrees are not all equal in the benefits they bring to students, and women tend to obtain degrees in fields with lower earnings. Women with associate degrees earn approximately 75 percent of…

Nursing educators have struggled for many years with the problem of student attrition in the minority population. Because there are so few minority students who choose nursing as a profession, educators strive to retain these students to graduation. Unfortunately, attrition rates of minority students continue to rise despite years of research into…