Community Colleges: Pathways to Opportunity

From High School to Success In College

Academic Success for All Young People

Community Colleges: Pathways to Opportunity

Test Drive: Six States Pilot Better Ways to Measure and Compare Community College Performance Increasing demand for at least some postsecondary education in today’s labor market has met with stagnating college completion rates. As a result, states have a growing interest in better understanding the challenges to improving graduation rates and in tracking student progress and success. Six states in the Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count initiative have designed and tested a more complete and accurate way of measuring community college student performance and success. Test Drive describes this new approach and compares it to the current federal system, highlights key findings from the pilot testing process and the links between state policies and the varying state results, and identifies the group’s priorities for further refining the new measures and related benchmarks. The ultimate goal is to design a set of measures that accurately describe and track the multiple successful outcomes that community college students attain and to identify the warning signs of struggling students early enough in their educational careers to help keep them on track. This richer set of measures will help colleges tell a more complete and true story of their students’ educational progress, help them identify stumbling blocks in the road, and ultimately improve progress and outcomes. It’s Not About the Cut Score: Redesigning Placement Assessment Policy to Improve Student Success Placement assessment policy, which governs how colleges assess the academic skills of entering students and place them in courses that are appropriate for their skill levels, can be an important lever for increasing student success in community colleges. A coherent policy would indicate which students must be assessed, specify assessment instruments, set cut score standards, and articulate procedures to be used uniformly across a state. Well-designed placement assessment policies also can help increase student success in a number of ways, and they can be used to help improve the college readiness of incoming students. With these benefits in mind, many states are evaluating their placement assessment policies, or lack thereof. As they do, they are finding that setting placement assessment policy is not a simple process. This brief by JFF’s Michael Lawrence Collins describes the experiences of Virginia, Connecticut, and North Carolina as they revised their placement assessment policies. It also explores current policies in all states and makes recommendations for states that seek to evaluate and revise their policies. Virginia, Connecticut, and North Carolina all participate in Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count, a multiyear, national initiative designed to help more community college students succeed—complete courses, earn certificates and earn degrees. The brief includes a detailed resource guide on policies in Achieving the Dream states. Pushing the Envelope: State Policy Innovations in Financing Higher Education for Workers Who Study Postsecondary education, accompanied by a credential documenting mastered skills, is an important ticket out of poverty for a significant portion of the working population. However, even community college can be out of reach for many low-income working adults. In Pushing the Envelope,JFF's Radha Roy Biswas, Vickie Choitz, and Heath Prince profile 12 states that have amended or created student aid programs to better serve adult students. States typically have done so based on the proposition that investing in the education and skills of the workforce produces a return not only to individuals but also to businesses and the state. Pushing the Envelope is the second in a series of policy briefs from Breaking Through, a collaboration of JFF with the National Council for Workforce Education to help low-income, low-literacy adults succeed in community college occupational and technical degree programs.

From High School to Success In College

Graduation Day 2008: News from the Early College High School Initiative This spring, nearly 3,000 students graduated from early college high schools across the country. Their accomplishments, featured in the June issue of ECHS News, show that the challenge and supports offered by early college really do make a difference. Local media reported extensively on this year’s graduates—noting their success with college coursework while in high school and their plans for pursuing further education. It has been a long road for many of these young people and for the faculty and school partners who continue to refine these new schools. All are paving the way for a growing number of young people who will benefit from the early college experience. We congratulate this year’s graduates and the many adults who have contributed to their success.

Academic Success for All Young People

Ensuring College Success: Scaffolding Experiences for Students and Faculty in an Early College School The Science, Technology and Research Early College School, working closely with Brooklyn College in a partnership supported by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, has amassed an impressive record in its first five years. STAR’s successful early outcomes are the result of the ambitious goals and careful planning of the school and its partners. The key is a multiyear transition plan that gradually introduces students to college-going experiences and the demands of college coursework, while providing a wide variety of supports tailored to individual needs. Ensuring College Success, by Anne Newton and Kristen Vogt, is a joint publication of JFF and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation.