Student Completion

March 2023
Much like online learning, the concept of course sharing is not new; for decades, college students have taken classes at nearby schools that offer seats for visiting learners. In fact, online course sharing originated in community colleges in the late 1990s (Walker, 2021). Today, given the recent transformations within higher education, alongside great strides in technology, the modes through which course sharing can occur now span across individual institutions, consortia, and online platforms and networks. Thousands of colleges and universities across the U.S. use course sharing frameworks...
August 2022
The Saginaw Academy for Excellence was created through a collaborative vision of leaders from Delta College and the Saginaw Public School District (SPSD). Dr. Michael Gavin, Delta College President, and Dr. Ramont Roberts, SPSD Superintendent, led their respective teams in designing a dual enrollment program for high school juniors and seniors which will provide students the opportunity to earn up to 30 credits toward an associate degree in two years. The goals of the Saginaw Academy of Excellence are to Provide a seamless route from high school to higher education at no cost to students or...
April 2022
On February 3, 2021, I participated in a California panel discussion hosted by the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Columbia University that addressed the cost benefits of adopting a guided pathways model. The discussion focused on two CCRC reports: The Economics of Guided Pathways: Cost, Funding, and Value (Belfield, 2020) and Funding Guided Pathways: A Guide for Community College Leaders (Jenkins et al., 2020). Based on my experience as President of Bakersfield College (BC), I assert that both reports can be extremely useful for administrators responsible for budgets, best...
April 2022
Mesa Community College (MCC) launched its second Z Degree program, an Associate in Arts with an emphasis in communication, beginning in the spring 2022 semester. The college’s first Z Degree, an Arizona General Education Curriculum certificate and general associate’s degree, was introduced in 2019. A Z Degree is offered completely online with zero textbook costs, saving students time and money. “The Z Degree offers students greater flexibility, enabling them to take classes that fit their schedule. We built this program for the students who want flexibility, less distraction, and less cost...
October 2021
Johnson County Community College (JCCC) has partnered with Butler Community College (BCC) to offer expanded training in culinary arts. This opportunity allows JCCC to extend the benefits of its Chef Apprenticeship program to more Kansas students. In turn, the collaboration strengthens state and local workforce opportunities. Through this agreement, BCC is offering two additional certificates to students in South Central Kansas. The new certificate options use existing BCC culinary courses with the addition of practicum courses from JCCC. Along with invaluable industry training, students in...
May 2021
Student retention continues to be a major concern for most community colleges in the U.S. According to research conducted by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (2019), of all students enrolled in two-year public institutions beginning in fall 2017, only 48.9 percent would continue at the same institution in fall 2018. Comparatively, students at four-year public institutions over the same period boasted an 82.7 percent retention rate. While students may struggle for a variety of reasons, one way to positively address this issue is within the classroom. Over the course of an...
February 2021
In fiscal year 2019-2020, Sinclair Community College (Sinclair) received $10,000 from StrivePartnership Cincinnati and Learn to Earn Dayton to develop and implement a strategic communication plan to reach students who had stopped out in the previous two years without completing a degree from any postsecondary institution. Sinclair chose to expand their reach beyond the originally funded 2,000 students to include an additional 6,300 students who had stopped out in the previous five years. The communication strategy consisted of a combination of intentional personalized phone calls, email, mail...
August 2017
Since the launch of the American Graduation Initiative in 2009, the call to increase college graduation rates and to create a better educated workforce for the jobs of the future has become nearly universal. According to Former President Obama, speaking at the University of Texas on August 9, 2010, “in a single generation, [the U.S. has] fallen from first place to 12th place in college graduation rates for young adults" (as cited in de Nies, 2010, para. 3). He advocated for America to “once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world” by 2020 (as cited in Fry, 2017,...
April 2017
Midland College (MC) has been named as a Cadre 1 community college to participate in an integrated statewide approach to student success. For the past two years, MC has been designing and implementing a pathways model with clear, educationally coherent program maps that are aligned for program completion, quality credentials, workforce skills, and transferability for baccalaureate and graduate degrees. As a result of MC’s efforts, the college has been recognized as a leader in the Texas Success Center’s Texas Pathways initiative, and the MC developmental math program has been named as...
September 2016
Snead State Community College launched the College Completion Agenda in 2010 to encourage student success with the ultimate goal of earning an associate degree. The initiative became the one thing at the college that drives everything faculty and staff do to encourage student success. Snead State was the first two-year college in Alabama to sign on to the College Completion Agenda, which developed out of a Call to Action signed by six key educational organizations: Phi Theta Kappa National Honor Society, American Association of Community College, Association of Community College Trustees,...
February 2016
In the fall of 2009, the first cohort of more than 100 ninth-grade students were admitted into Early College High School at Midland College (ECHS@MC). The school focuses primarily on serving first-generation college students, those with a low socioeconomic status, and/or those whose ethnicities are underrepresented at the college level. Today, Midland College (MC) and the Midland Independent School District (MISD) have recognized three cohorts of graduates from the successful program. Over 85 percent of those students received associate degrees from Midland College at the same time they...
March 2015
In fall 2012, I applied for a Learning Challenge Grant to develop and present a hands-on workshop that would introduce a counseling, assessment, and retention tool (CART) system to the Electronics Engineering Technology (EET) department faculty and staff at Sinclair Community College (SCC). After this workshop, the goal was to offer it to the Science, Mathematics, and Engineering (SME) division, then to all SCC faculty. The workshop was requested to: Develop teamwork within the EET department; Enhance the overall success rate of students and faculty by implementing a system to increase the...
2015
This file includes the References list for Expanding Opportunity for All: How Can We Increase Community College Student Completion?
February 2014
As colleges strive to improve student success and completion, helping students delay pregnancy and parenting (or having additional children) means one less factor that can interfere with their college education. However, pregnancy planning and prevention is not something most community colleges have addressed. Free resources are now available for colleges, including three short and easy-to-use online lessons that have been shown to improve students' knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral intent when it comes to preventing unplanned pregnancy. Unplanned Pregnancy and College Completion Unplanned...
2014
Beginning in fall 2011, as part of a three-year Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant-funded intervention, nine urban, small town, and rural U.S. community colleges were selected to adopt a Facebook-based application, known as Schools App, for limited use by invited students, staff, faculty, and administrators.  This report on the Getting Connected Project provides an overview of this research, which was the first longitudinal research study to use real-time data generated by the users of Schools App to examine how commuter-based community colleges attempt to use social media technology...