Existing research has suggested numerous advantages of dual enrollment, which allows high school students to concurrently earn high school and college credit through enrollment in a single course, including an increased likelihood of high school to college transitions and stronger postsecondary outcomes such as a reduced time to degree completion.…

Background: Lengthy sequences of decontextualized adult education and literacy program courses pose a challenge to two-year college students' educational outcomes. The Integrated Education and Training model has been suggested as a promising approach to creating accelerated and contextualized pathways from adult education and literacy programming…

Public 2-year colleges were designed to serve students coming primarily from their local communities, hence explaining their "community college" title. This study focuses on an understudied factor capable of altering the local workforce impact of community colleges while also potentially strengthening their 4-year steppingstone function:…

Roughly 40% of first-time freshman enter college at two-year institutions (Ginder, et al., 2015) and between roughly 70 to 80% of students enrolled at two-year institutions report the intent to continue their education to earn a bachelor's degree (Jenkins & Fink, 2016; U.S. Department of Education, 2001). However, less than half of the…

"Black men made up 2.4% of the undergraduate population at Power Five schools but comprised 55% of their football teams and 56% of their men's basketball teams" (Brenneman, 2018, p. 1). Despite the greater participation rates for college student-athletes, Black male student-athlete degree attainment still lags behind their Black male…

World language study exposes students to more than just language; they are also exposed to different cultures. After graduating, students will be exposed to different languages and cultures in the workforce, and they must be prepared. Students often leave their language of choice after the one or two semester course requirement; it takes more than…

Today's post-secondary institutions in the United States are seeing the continuous decline of enrollment. In Fall, 2020, there were 19 million students enrolled in college according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center in 2020, which is a decline of 4.4% from the prior year. While the decline can partially be attributed to the…

The five-paragraph essay is highly controversial, and yet it has also been a useful format for composition. In this essay we explain why, despite its limits, students need to go along with the format to make what use and get what advantage of it. We then demonstrate that valuing the philosophical, historical, cultural, and educational backgrounds…

Objective: This research study examined textbook costs and student success rates at one community college in the Southwest United States. Method: Descriptive statistics were used in the study to identify the mean textbook costs and student success rates over five semesters. Chi-square tests for independence were used to determine if a…

This qualitative narrative inquiry study explored students' perceptions of intervention strategies used in the early alert program at an Arkansas two-year college. The problem addressed in this study was that student perceptions do not inform early alert program designs. By assessing the student's perceptions of intervention strategies,…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe the proven strategies used by faculty to increase retention and recruitment at two-year colleges. The theory guiding this study is van Manen's theory on hermeneutical phenomenology, as it focuses on the lived experiences of the participants and interpreting their told stories. The setting…

As a community college writing instructor, I found older students to be both an asset and a mentor in guiding students through the process of exploring their lives and values.

Two-year community colleges enroll nearly half of all first-time undergraduates in the United States, but to ambiguous effect: low persistence rates and the potential for diverting students from 4-year institutions cast ambiguity over 2-year colleges' contributions to upward mobility. This paper develops a new instrumental variables approach to…

This book highlights the exciting work of two-year colleges to prepare students for their future careers through engagement in undergraduate research. It emerged from work in five community college systems thanks to two National Science Foundation grants the Council for Undergraduate Research received to support community colleges' efforts to…

Objective: To determine whether sexual-risk and STI-testing behaviors differ by college student status. Participants: Sexually experienced 17- to 25-year-olds from a 2013 nationally representative panel survey that evaluated the "Get Yourself Tested" campaign. Non-students (n = 628), 2-yr (n = 319), and 4-yr college students (n = 587)…