tag: Community colleges
Blog Post
November 21, 2019
Increasing Awareness of Basic Needs
Holistic Measures of Student Success for Community College Leaders
Higher education institutions typically use quantitative metrics like year-to-year retention rates, graduation rates, and post-secondary outcomes to measure student success. Most, if not all, institutions are required to report these data to government, regulatory, and accreditation agencies, and use them for benchmarking and measuring progress towards goals. To date, however, the student perspective of what success means — and what barriers stand in the way of achieving it — has often been omitted from these practices. Our research with seven…
Blog Post
October 24, 2019
How to Survey Community College Students
New Report Now Available
Last month, we published a report based on the findings of a survey of over 10,000 students at seven community colleges. While the project itself is aimed at better understanding the needs, goals, and challenges of students, and assessing demand for a number of services that might support their success, a helpful byproduct of this research is what we have uncovered in administering a survey to this population. Today we are publishing…
Research Report
October 24, 2019
Surveying Community College Students
Strategies for Maximizing Engagement and Increasing Participation
Higher education researchers need to employ effective outreach methods in order to connect with the populations they study. For surveys in particular, low response rates can lead to non-response error, decreasing generalizability and representativeness. To combat these issues, Ithaka S+R has developed and tested a suite of outreach strategies that we have employed over the past two decades in our long-running national faculty survey as well as our local surveys of faculty and students.[1] In fall 2018, we surveyed students…
Blog Post
October 22, 2019
Driving Liberal Arts Transfer Pathways
It’s Time for Independent Colleges to Target Community College Students
Every fall, an estimated 1.1 million American students begin their postsecondary education at community colleges. While most (80 percent) intend to earn their bachelor’s degree, less than a third transfer to a four-year institution and only 13 percent actually earn their bachelor’s degree in six years. Transfer practices between two- and four-year institutions are not adequately serving students. What’s more, scalable policies designed…
Blog Post
September 30, 2019
Students Are the Experts
New Report Explores the Needs of Community College Students
How do community college students define their own success? And what services do they think will help them succeed? To find out, we started with a radical idea: students are the experts. Last year, we interviewed dozens of students at seven community colleges on their goals and unmet needs. Today, we release a new report, Student Needs Are Academic Needs, on a…
Research Report
September 30, 2019
Student Needs Are Academic Needs
Community College Libraries and Academic Support for Student Success
The Community College Libraries and Academic Support for Student Success (CCLASSS) project examines student success from the perspective of students themselves, what challenges they face in achieving it, and what services can be developed to effectively support them in their attainment of that success. In fall 2018, we surveyed 10,844 students across seven community colleges to assess the value of and demand for proposed services designed to address students’ expressed goals, challenges, and needs.
Past Event
November 6, 2019
Community College Success: Student Perspectives & Institutional Practices
Rayane Alamuddin and Christine Wolff-Eisenberg Present at College Board Forum
On Wednesday, November 6, from 4:00-5:15 pm, Rayane Alamuddin and Christine Wolff-Eisenberg will present on “Community College Success: Student Perspectives & Institutional Practices” at the College Board Forum in Washington, DC. They will be joined on the panel by Dr. Braddlee, Dean of Learning & Technology Resources at Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale Campus, and Elizabeth Gonzalez, Director of the METAS Center and Hispanic Serving Institution Initiatives, at San Jose City College. For more information about the Forum and to…
Blog Post
July 18, 2019
Improving Articulation of Transfer Credit at CUNY
Although over 87 percent of new community college students at the City University of New York (CUNY) intend to transfer and complete at least a bachelor’s degree, only 11 percent do so within six years. Whether and how a student’s credits articulate during transfer can have significant consequences for these students’ educational trajectory. Students who transfer most or all of their credits are 2.5 times more likely to graduate compared to those who…
Blog Post
March 27, 2019
Three Questions for Giuseppe Basili
For our most recent newsletter, we interviewed Giuseppe “Seppy” Basili, the executive director of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation (JKCF), a foundation dedicated to advancing the education of exceptionally promising students who have financial need. In this interview, Basili addresses how JKCF’s mission has evolved, what new initiatives it is undertaking, and the challenges the foundation faces as it seeks greater access to higher education for high-achieving, low-income students. 1. You’ve been with…
Blog Post
February 25, 2019
On Being Student-Centered
Reflections on the CCLASSS Project and DREAM 2019
What does it mean for us to be student-centered in our work at Ithaka S+R? In our collaborative research initiative on student success and community college libraries, the Community College Libraries & Academic Support for Student Success (CCLASSS) project, being student-centered means that we have positioned student voices as not only valuable but essential to our work. While our ultimate aim for the CCLASSS project is to design new library…
Blog Post
January 14, 2019
Defining Academic Support Services in Community Colleges
Last year, Ithaka S+R, along with a team of outstanding advisors from a variety of community colleges and college systems, embarked on the first phase of the Community College Academic and Student Services Ecosystem (CCASSE) project, a new research initiative to examine and develop recommendations for how academic support services can more effectively support student success. The project was inspired by earlier findings from the Community College Libraries and Academic Support for…
Past Event
February 25, 2019
Defining Success: Uncovering Community College Student Perspectives
Christine Wolff-Eisenberg at the League for Innovation Conference
Christine Wolff-Eisenberg will join Braddlee from Northern Virginia Community College and Jean Amaral from the Borough of Manhattan Community for a panel discussion on “Defining Success: Uncovering Community College Student Perspectives” at the League for Innovation Conference in New York City. The panel will take place on February 25 at 3:00 pm. Conference registration is now open on the League for Innovation website. About the panel Braddlee, Christine, and Jean will provide an overview of the Community College Libraries…
Blog Post
November 13, 2018
Community College Student Success Project in the Journal of Academic Librarianship
Preprint Available
Last week, the Journal of Academic Librarianship published an article that I co-authored with Braddlee from Northern Virginia Community College on the Community College Libraries and Academic Support for Student Success (CCLASSS) project. The CCLASSS project is focused on understanding (1) how “student success” can be defined so that it is inclusive both of students’ own needs as well as important policy priorities, and (2) what services colleges and their academic libraries…
Blog Post
September 26, 2018
The Landscape of First-Year Programming in Two-Year Institutions
A student’s first year at a new college is a critically important period—academically, socio-emotionally, personally, and professionally. To help incoming college students succeed, many institutions offer First-Year Experience (FYE) programs. But most of the research on the scope and effectiveness of these programs centers on four-year colleges and universities, overlooking an important sector of the postsecondary student population–namely students in two-year programs. To begin to fill this research gap, Ithaka S+R and Two Year First Year (TYFY), with support from the…
Research Report
September 26, 2018
The First-Year Experience in Two-Year Public Postsecondary Programs
Results of a National Survey
A student’s first year at a new college is a critically important period—academically, socio-emotionally, personally, and professionally. Whether transitioning from high school, other postsecondary education, or the labor market, students often need to adjust to a myriad of changes beyond just the new academic environment. They may be relocating, starting a new job in order to pay for tuition and living expenses, or facing new demands as they balance family responsibilities, work, and school deadlines. Students learn to navigate new…
Blog Post
September 4, 2018
“The Degree Is Cool, But I’m More About the Knowledge”
How Community College Students Define Student Success
“Student success” has moved to the forefront of the higher education agenda. Success at community colleges — and four-year colleges — has often been defined by the achievement of institutional outcomes, predominantly comprised of various measures of student persistence, achievement, and attainment, including rates of transfer, enrollment in postsecondary education, GPA, retention, time to graduation, graduation, and post-graduation job attainment and compensation. However, these traditional measures of student success have often been derived from higher education institutions, state…
Blog Post
August 30, 2018
Community College Academic and Student Services Ecosystem
Ithaka S+R Launches New Research Project
Thirty-nine percent of all US undergraduate students attend community colleges, with roughly nine million enrolled in public two-year colleges annually. These institutions serve a wide range of students, including underrepresented minorities, veterans, low-income, adult, and first-generation students, as well as underprepared and non-traditional learners. But with only 37.5 percent earning a degree from either a two- or four-year institution within six years of starting…
Research Report
August 13, 2018
Amplifying Student Voices
The Community College Libraries and Academic Support for Student Success Project
The Community College Libraries & Academic Support for Student Success (CCLASSS) project examines student goals, challenges, and needs from the student perspective. Through this project, we aim to provide community colleges and their libraries with strategic intelligence on how to adapt their services to most effectively meet student needs. In spring 2018, we conducted semi-structured interviews with students at seven partner community colleges on student objectives and goals, definitions of success, challenges faced, and coursework practices. Key findings Across…
Blog Post
August 12, 2018
New Report: Supporting Student Success at Community Colleges
What goals are community college students trying to achieve through their education? What challenges are they facing? What services might help them succeed? These questions are at the center of a multi-year research project that Ithaka S+R and Northern Virginia Community College, along with six other community college partners and with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), are currently undertaking. Today, we’re issuing our first report from the project,…
Blog Post
June 27, 2018
New Research from the American Talent Initiative on Community College Transfer to Top Colleges and Universities
The American Talent Initiative (ATI) just released new research suggesting that, each year, 50,000 high-achieving, low- and moderate-income community college students do not transfer to any four-year institution. Approximately 15,000 of these lower-income students have the academic credentials to be successful at even the most selective colleges and universities, having earned a 3.7 GPA or higher at their community college. ATI’s research demonstrates that enrolling more lower-income freshman is not the only viable strategy for increasing socioeconomic diversity…