scholarly journals Supporting Community College Students from Start to Degree Completion: Long-Term Evidence from a Randomized Trial of CUNY’s ASAP

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Weiss ◽  
Alyssa Ratledge ◽  
Colleen Sommo ◽  
Himani Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Community College ◽  
Community Colleges ◽  
Graduation Rates ◽  
Degree Completion ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Randomized Experiments ◽  
Low Income Students ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
The City

Nationwide, graduation rates at community colleges are discouragingly low. This randomized experiment provides evidence that graduation rates can be increased dramatically. The City University of New York’s (CUNY) Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) is a comprehensive, integrated, 3-year program that has an estimated 18 percentage point effect on 3-year graduation rates, increases 6-year graduation rates by an estimated 10 percentage points, and helps students graduate more quickly. Graduation effect estimates of this magnitude are exceptional in randomized experiments conducted in higher education, offering hope of what is possible when serving low-income students. (JEL H75, I23, I24, I28)

scholarly journals Testing CREATE at Community Colleges: An Examination of Faculty Perspectives and Diverse Student Gains

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. ar8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristy L. Kenyon ◽  
Morgan E. Onorato ◽  
Alan J. Gottesman ◽  
Jamila Hoque ◽  
Sally G. Hoskins
Keyword(s):  
Community College ◽  
New York ◽  
Community Colleges ◽  
Epistemological Beliefs ◽  
The United States ◽  
City College ◽  
Diverse Student ◽  
Thinking Ability ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
The City

CREATE (Consider, Read, Elucidate the hypotheses, Analyze and interpret the data, and Think of the next Experiment) is an innovative pedagogy for teaching science through the intensive analysis of scientific literature. Initiated at the City College of New York, a minority-serving institution, and regionally expanded in the New York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania area, this methodology has had multiple positive impacts on faculty and students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics courses. To determine whether the CREATE strategy is effective at the community college (2-yr) level, we prepared 2-yr faculty to use CREATE methodologies and investigated CREATE implementation at community colleges in seven regions of the United States. We used outside evaluation combined with pre/postcourse assessments of students to test related hypotheses: 1) workshop-trained 2-yr faculty teach effectively with the CREATE strategy in their first attempt, and 2) 2-yr students in CREATE courses make cognitive and affective gains during their CREATE quarter or semester. Community college students demonstrated positive shifts in experimental design and critical-thinking ability concurrent with gains in attitudes/self-rated learning and maturation of epistemological beliefs about science.

scholarly journals College on the Cheap: Consequences of Community College Tuition Reductions

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey T. Denning
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Community College ◽  
Community Colleges ◽  
College Enrollment ◽  
First Year ◽  
College Tuition ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Experimental Variation ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
Over Time

This paper examines the effects of community college tuition on college enrollment. I exploit quasi-experimental variation from discounts for community college tuition in Texas that were expanded over time and across geography for identification. Community college enrollment in the first year after high school increased by 5.1 percentage points for each $1,000 decrease in tuition, which implies an elasticity of —0.29. Lower tuition also increased transfer from community colleges to universities. Marginal community college enrollees induced to attend by reduced tuition have similar graduation rates as average community college enrollees. (JEL H75, I22, I23, I28)

scholarly journals Beyond BA Blinders: Lessons from Occupational Colleges and Certificate Programs for Nontraditional Students

2013 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E Rosenbaum ◽  
Janet Rosenbaum
Keyword(s):  
Community College ◽  
Community Colleges ◽  
Nontraditional Students ◽  
Postsecondary Education ◽  
Degree Completion ◽  
Private Colleges ◽  
Career Preparation ◽  
Completion Rates ◽  
Certificate Programs ◽  
Student Difficulties

Postsecondary education mostly focuses on the four-year BA degree. Community colleges are often promoted as the first step toward the ultimate goal of a four-year degree. However, community colleges have extremely poor degree completion rates. There is evidence suggesting better results for their private, two-year counterparts—particularly for certificate completion. We will focus on occupational colleges—private accredited colleges that offer career preparation in occupational fields like health care, business, information technology, and others. These institutions challenge many of our preconceptions about college. They are less wedded to college traditions, which raises some interesting questions: Do private colleges offering certificates or AA degrees use different procedures? Should community colleges consider some of these procedures to reduce student difficulties and improve their completion rates? For many community college students, earning a more likely, quick sub-BA credential—perhaps followed by a four-year degree in the future—will be preferable to the relatively unlikely pathway from a community college program directly to a four-year BA. In sum, this paper suggests that nontraditional colleges and nontraditional credentials (certificates and AA degrees) deserve much closer attention from researchers, policymakers, and students.

Campus of Opportunity: A Qualitative Analysis of Homeless Students in Community College

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 190-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jarrett T. Gupton
Keyword(s):  
Community College ◽  
Community Colleges ◽  
Postsecondary Education ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Homeless Youth ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Underrepresented Students ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Access To Higher Education ◽  
Homeless Students

Objective: Community colleges are gateways of access to higher education for many underrepresented students. One group that has received little attention in the community college research literature is homeless youth. The objective of this research is to address the following research questions: (a) What might be learned from the narratives of homeless youth and their experiences in postsecondary education? and (b) How might community colleges promote interpersonal and institutional resilience for homeless students? Method: Utilizing qualitative research techniques, this article reviews the experiences’ of homeless youth attending community college and explores the ways in which community colleges might serve as sites for fostering resilience and stability in the lives of homeless students. Results: The results of this empirical work suggest that although homeless students do benefit from enrolling in community college, some of the benefits are not salient to them and they are unable to take full advantage of institutional resources. Contributions: The findings from this study contribute to the literature on low-income students’ experiences in community college and add the voices and experiences of homeless youth.

The Hidden Costs of Corroboration: Estimating the Effects of Financial Aid Verification on College Enrollment

2021 ◽  
pp. 016237372198930
Author(s):  
Jason C. Lee ◽  
Madison Dell ◽  
Manuel S. González Canché ◽  
Alex Monday ◽  
Amanda Klafehn
Keyword(s):  
Financial Aid ◽  
Low Income ◽  
College Enrollment ◽  
High School Graduates ◽  
Underserved Populations ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Department Of Education ◽  
Low Income Students ◽  
Student Aid ◽  
Percentage Points

Every year, the U.S. Department of Education selects hundreds of thousands of low-income students to provide additional documentation to corroborate their financial aid eligibility in a process known as verification. Although many are concerned about the potential deleterious effects of being selected, to date, studies are limited to descriptive analyses. To fill this gap in the literature, we use population-level, multicohort data to estimate the effects of financial aid verification on initial college enrollment for recent high school graduates in Tennessee. An entropy balance weighting approach indicates that students selected for verification are 3.8 percentage points (4.9%) less likely to enroll in college with underserved populations and late Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) filers most negatively affected.

Marginalizing Poverty with Car-Dependent Design: The Story of Two Expulsions

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tristan Cleveland
Keyword(s):  
Historically Black ◽  
Urban Design ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
First Nation ◽  
Walking Distance ◽  
Black Communities ◽  
Design Elements ◽  
The City

In the twentieth century in Nova Scotia, at least two racialized communities were forcibly expelled from their land: Black Africville residents in Halifax and the Membertou Mi’kmaw First Nation in Sydney. Differences in the long-term outcomes of the two expulsions, however, reveal critical factors in how urban design can support or frustrate poverty alleviation. While the Membertou First Nation was relocated as a whole to a centralized context where they were geographically positioned to stage an economic transformation, Africville residents were more widely dispersed, many to areas with less access to jobs and other economic opportunities.This article analyzes the urban design elements in Halifax that create barriers to prosperity for the city’s historically Black communities and low-income residents. These factors include housing displacement, the suburbanization of poverty, and a lack of access to transit and other destinations within walking distance of homes. This article proposes three policy options to address these barriers and ensure that the city offers opportunity to all residents.

Effects of Reduced Community College Tuition on College Choices and Degree Completion

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-71
Author(s):  
Riley Acton
Keyword(s):  
Community College ◽  
Community Colleges ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
College Credit ◽  
For Profit ◽  
College Tuition ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
College Choices ◽  
Bachelor's Degrees

Recent efforts to increase college access and completion concentrate on reducing tuition rates at community colleges, but researchers and policymakers alike have expressed concern that such reductions may not lead to long-term gains in college completion. In this paper, I use detailed data on students' college enrollment and completion outcomes to study how community college tuition rates affect students' outcomes across both public and private colleges. By exploiting spatial variation in tuition rates, I find that reducing tuition at a student's local community college by $1,000 increases enrollment at the college by 3.5 percentage points (18%) and reduces enrollment at non-local community colleges, for-profit institutions, and other private, vocationally-focused colleges, by 1.9 percentage points (15%). This shift in enrollment choices increases students' persistence in college, credit completion, and the probability that they transfer to and earn bachelor's degrees from four-year colleges.

Evaluation of Cost Savings and Perceptions of an Open Textbook in a Community College Science Course

2018 ◽  
Vol 80 (6) ◽  
pp. 410-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew R. Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Academic Achievement ◽  
Community College ◽  
Student Perceptions ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Cost Savings ◽  
Online Resources ◽  
Low Income Students ◽  
College Science ◽  
Novel Method ◽  
Open Textbooks

Open textbooks are free, online resources that can replace traditional textbooks and save students money. The costs of traditional textbooks continue to increase, and this can particularly affect at-risk, low-income students. Few studies have analyzed student perceptions of open textbooks and how they influence academic achievement, but the emerging trend is positive. In the present study, I assessed student perceptions of an open textbook and calculated the subsequent cost savings. Although there were some limitations to my study, such as a low sample size, my results closely mirror previous studies in that most students had favorable opinions of the open textbook and would prefer to use them over traditional textbooks. The average cost savings per student was $81 for one course, determined using a novel method that does not assume all students buy new textbooks. These savings were likely important to the students, the majority of whom worked five hours or more and have received Pell Grants or other tuition waivers.

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