Enhancing the link between higher education and employment

This study aims to improve the efficiency of fiscal assistance programs for higher education by investigating those variables that influence college graduates’ employment rates. An empirical analysis of 2010–2011 higher education statistics shows that two variables – educational expenditure per student and the number of students per full-time faculty member – consistently and significantly affect college graduates’ employment rates, even after location and type of school are controlled. Although scholarship rates also affect employment rates positively, the number of students per industry–academe liaison officer does not have a statistically significant effect. Moreover, as educational expenditure per student or the student/faculty ratio increases beyond a certain level, graduate employment improves at an increasing rate. The two variables also affect the employment rate interactively. At a relatively higher level of per-student expenditure, employment rates increase even as the student/faculty ratio rises. However, at a relatively lower level of per-student expenditure, employment rates decline as the student/faculty ratio rises.The policy implication is that fiscal assistance programs for higher educational institutions should accord a much greater weight to these key variables when selecting and assessing institutional recipients.     

A National Survey of Community College Baccalaureate Institutions

This study utilized original survey data and a national sample of community college baccalaureate (CCB) institutions to examine how offering baccalaureate programs impacts these colleges and the students they serve. An increasing number of these colleges plan to offer their baccalaureate programs online, and programs in technology are projected to experience the greatest growth. The data suggest that student needs, and not institutional revenue or prestige, are the primary motivation for offering bachelor's degrees. The challenges experienced when establishing the CCB programs were more likely to come from external than internal factors. Collectively, thousands of students have already graduated from these programs. Results from this study can be used by policymakers and college administrators to make data-driven decisions regarding baccalaureate programming at the community college.     

Community College Students With Criminal Justice Histories and Human Services Education: Glass Ceiling,Brick Wall,or a Pathway to Success

In spite of open access to community college education, specifically human service associate degree programs, students with criminal justice histories do not necessarily have an unobstructed pathway to obtaining the degree and admission to the baccalaureate programs in human services and social work that are almost always selective. The first obstacle may arise when a student must be placed in the field internship. This may mark the first time in a student’s educational career where he or she must disclose his or her ex-offender status. While higher education plays a well-documented role against recidivism, students who are ex-offenders who are enrolled in community college programs and also have their sights set on transfer, professional credentialing, and professional employment, may face similar barriers. There is a paucity of research related to students in community college with criminal justice histories and a clear need for qualitative and quantitative study in the area. The author calls for more active advocacy and community education roles for community college professionals in this arena as well.     

A Review of: “How to Talk About Hot Topics on Campus: From Polarization to Moral Conversation By Robert J. Nash,DeMethra LaSha Bradley,and Arthur W. Chickering”

As community colleges face increasingly tight budgets and calls for a renewed focus on improving student outcomes in the form of graduation rates, colleges must address the concept of access. How much access to higher education can they continue to provide low-skilled students in adult education and similar programs? One way to ensure access to these students is through formalized transition to college programs. The authors summarize characteristics of two transition program models and introduce research at a community college that evaluated the effectiveness of three characteristics in the models.     

Doing it the Community College Way: Community College-Specific Programming

ABSTRACT

Community colleges are often boxed into university models despite the unique nature of their institutional missions and student populations. We believe community colleges need to develop their own models, rooted in their distinctive missions, to encourage student success. We illustrate this through our experience with a short-term research assistantship program. The program created a brief, but important, way to enhance the student–professor relationship and engage students in applied research practices. It also provided a resource to assist community college faculty in conducting their own, original research. We hope others will not only develop similar programs, but perhaps more importantly, that this article will spur bottom-up, creative thinking to engage time-constrained, community college students in meaningful ways.     

“Life prepared me well for succeeding”: The Enactment of Community Cultural Wealth,Experiential Capital,and Transfer Student Capital by First-Generation Engineering Transfer Students

ABSTRACT

Community colleges have long been recognized as pivotal institutions for broadening educational opportunity for a variety of marginalized populations, including first-generation students. These institutions are also an important starting point for students desiring to eventually earn a bachelor’s degree in a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics discipline. Our qualitative study explores the experiences of 15 first-generation community college transfer students majoring in engineering. We use the theory of community cultural wealth and the concepts of experiential capital and transfer student capital as lenses for analyzing and interpreting our semistructured interview data and for formulating recommendations to improve the transfer experiences and educational outcomes of this population. This sample of students enacted several types of community cultural wealth and experiential capital when navigating the engineering transfer pathway and in their engineering studies. They were less likely to enact the elements of transfer student capital, however. Instead, our results indicate that the participants attribute their successful transitions to their self-motivation and initiative associated with community cultural wealth and experiential capital, rather than institutional interventions associated with transfer student capital. We conclude with recommendations for strengthening institutional programs directed at first-generation engineering transfer students.     

Community College Student Dropouts from Higher Education: Toward a Comprehensive Conceptual Model

ABSTRACT

Historically, higher education research has focused on traditional students (i.e., recent high school graduates at a residential, 4-year institutions), but community college students are quickly becoming the new traditional student (Jenkins, 2012). In the fall of 2011, more than one third (36%) of all students enrolled in postsecondary education and almost half (46.7%) of all students enrolled in a public postsecondary institution were enrolled at a community college (Knapp, Kelly-Reid, & Ginder, 2012). However, community colleges have struggled to match the persistence rates at other institutional types. The 2011 2-year public community college national 3-year persistence-to-degree rate was 26.9% (American College Testing [ACT], 2011). The purpose of this paper is to review the literature regarding the most prominent theoretical frameworks for community college student persistence and suggest a new theoretical construct. The resultant framework is termed the Collective Affiliation Model because it views the student’s sense of belonging with the college as only one of many senses of belonging in the student’s life (e.g., family, work). The Collective Affiliation Model does not view student dropout as the student’s inability to integrate into the life of the institution; rather, it views it as the institution’s inability to collectively affiliate with the student. This model’s strength is that it does not work from a student deficit model. Instead, it provides a new framework for researchers and practitioners to better understand and address student drop-out at community colleges.     

Dual Enrollment and Retention in Tennessee Community Colleges: Implications for Practice

ABSTRACT

With the increased numbers of dual enrollment students across the country as well as various state initiatives to increase retention among the student population at large, institutions face great challenges when balancing the many initiatives incumbent upon them. However, Tennessee, a state leader in both the free community college and dual enrollment initiatives, the Tennessee Board of Regents System (TBR), and its community colleges are positioned to improve retention rates by giving greater attention to their dual enrollment students. This brief study of one cohort of students at Walters State Community College (WSCC), located in East Tennessee, noted a major disparity in retention between students with dual enrollment experience and those without, suggesting an extant need to give particular consideration to institutional approaches designed to reinforce the dual enrollment programs and the students’ experience in said programs. Doing so may not only address the initiative of providing high quality dual enrollment classes to high school students but also improve institutional retention rates.     

策略性行为视域下我国高校就业指导模式研究

策略性行为作为一种行为方法,对高校就业指导工作具有促进与引导作用,体现了就业指导公益性、人本性与共生性行为表征,围绕创新与阻止进入、竞赛与模仿、标准与兼容、协同合作与博弈四个要素,可以构建高校就业指导策略性行为系统模型。策略性行为强调要素之间的互动、竞争、关联与规则意识,同当前高校就业指导的实际状态不相符,尤其是刚性需求倾向、行为的融合断裂、制度性阻塞、指导适应力不足与导向性偏差等现象,造成了高校就业指导行为失范。在学生群体特点日益复杂、信息化手段日益便捷、就业指导形式日趋多样的背景下,运用策略性行为提升高校就业指导作用需要在理念上、机制上、范式上与视野上做文章、下功夫。改变大学生对于就业指导工作的认知,真正从就业指导过程中受益;积极构建就业指导与育人过程全面衔接的新机制,打破学生成长与发展的空间壁垒;坚持多元主体融合参与介入的新范式,充分调动各主体参与积极性;搭建学生就业能力创新与发展平台,彰显以学生为中心的发展理念。     

Persistence of community college students: The influence of student intent and academic and social integration

This article examines the extent to which social and academic integration and student educational objectives and intents to reenroll are predictive of persistence for community college students. An instrument designed to operationalize the concepts of social and academic integration for four-year college students was largely replicated with the two-year college population. Student educational objectives/intents discriminated most powerfully between persisters and nonpersisters, although academic and social integration and employment status also contributed significantly to differentiating the two groups. The article concludes with a brief discussion about the nature of community colleges and the fact that nonpersistence at the institution may be an indicator of student success if the student has transferred or accomplished his/her goals.     

Understanding College-Student Roles: Perspectives of Participants in a High School/Community College Dual-Enrollment Program

Dual-enrollment programs have been proposed as a useful way to ease students’ transition from high school to community college. Several studies have shown that dual enrollment produces positive effects for students, but less is known about the mechanisms these programs use to support student success. Symbolic interactionism suggests that clarity of the role of a college student may help students transition into this role with more ease. With new legislation allowing students to use Pell Grants to attend dual-enrollment programs, and other proposed policies to increase attendance at community college, research on the mechanisms that make dual enrollment successful is well-timed. This study takes a mixed method approach with an online survey (N = 101) and a series of focus groups (N = 15) to explore the experiences of dual-enrollment students from several high schools and one community college. Findings suggest that dual enrollment helped to enhance participants’ clarity of the college-student role, including who attends college, what skills are required, what college can lead to, and their own self-identification as college students. Sources of role expectations for these students included self-reflection and peer, family, teacher, and structural expectations. Students highlighted strengths and weaknesses of the dual-enrollment program in which they were enrolled. These findings have implications for practice, including the potential for dual enrollment to support low-income and first-generation college students in their transition to higher education.     

充分发挥学生社团在高职院校学生就业中的积极作用

做好大学生就业创业工作,是实现全面建设小康社会奋斗目标的要求,是服务改革发展稳定大局的要求,是竭诚服务青年学生成长发展的要求。为大学生的就业创业提供有效服务也是当前高职院校学生社团组织的重要职能和必然要求。我们认为,只有加强高职院校学生社团建设,给青年学生提供一个自我展示、自我锻炼、自我学习的平台,才能更好地提高大学生的就业能力,提升学生的就业率。     

Formative Self-Assessment College Classes Improves Self-Regulation and Retention in First/Second Year Community College Students

This research examined the influence formative self-assessment had on first/second year community college student self-regulatory practices. Previous research has shown that the ability to regulate one’s learning activities can improve performance in college classes, and it has long been known that the use of formative assessment improves learning. However, little has been done exploring the influence of formative self-assessment on variables associated with both student and institutional success. First/second year community college students enrolled in 10 self-assessment and six traditional assessment classes completed the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) at the conclusion of one semester as a measure of self-regulation specific to the individual class under examination. A modest effect of assessment type was found for self-reported self-regulation where students in self-assessment classes reported higher self-regulation than students in traditional assessment classes. Self-regulation was significantly and positively correlated with both behavioral (i.e., effort) and motivational (i.e., mastery goal orientation) variables. Additional results indicated a robust effect of instructor on self-regulation and a significant increase in retention for students enrolled in self-assessment classes. The findings of this research have implications for both classroom practice and institutional retention initiatives.     

Quality College and University Instructional Physical Activity Programs Contribute to Mens Sana in Corpore Sano, “The Good Life,” and Healthy Societies

Physical education debuted in higher education in 1860 at Amherst College. The program, aimed at the general student body, thrived under the leadership of Edward Hitchcock, Jr., M.D. Similar programs were developed elsewhere. At its high point, an estimated 97% of colleges and universities required their students to partake in some form of physical education in order to earn a bachelor’s degree. The early physical education pioneers were trained as medical doctors responsible for all aspects of student hygiene. Physical education ultimately evolved into its own academic discipline, known today as kinesiology. As the discipline codified, physical education programs aimed at addressing the needs of the total student body became increasingly marginalized. Regardless, quality college and university instructional physical activity programs (C/UIPAP) continue to this day and they have enormous unrealized potential for addressing student, institutional, and societal needs. Recommendations for helping C/UIPAP thrive in the 21st century are advanced.     

AN ORIENTATION COURSE AND COMMUNITY COLLEGE RETENTION

Orientation and retention programs are common in institutions of higher education. The potential association between orientation programs and student retention, particularly within the community college sector, has long been neglected. This study presents an institutional view of a potential associative relationship between an orientation course and student retention measures. A chi-square analysis revealed a significant association among orientation program, student completion of degree, student retention, and student enrollment and persistence.     

高职学生职业生涯教育与规划

面对大学生就业难的现实,在客观因素和就业条件不变的情况下,加强和提高大学生自身的素质,无疑是应对就业难的最好选择。“以服务为宗旨,以就业为导向”的高职教育,在培养学生不断提高职业能力的同时,还应该对高职学生进行职业生涯教育,使他们了解职业生涯教育的重要意义,懂得怎样进行职业生涯规划,掌握职业生涯规划的方法步骤等,学会科学、合理地规划自己的职业人生,从而取得职场制胜的法宝。     

Is Online Learning the Silver Bullet for Men of Color? An Institutional-Level Analysis of the California Community College System

The spread of online courses and programs in community colleges across the nation has contributed to a redefinition of open-access education. Accordingly, the growth in online courses has drawn attention to the value of different instructional modalities, particularly with regard to their effectiveness in learning, retention, and success. As a result, this study sought to determine whether or not there were differences in students’ academic success and course retention for community college men by racial/ethnic affiliation. This study used institutional data on men enrolled in California’s community college system to provide greater insight into the effect of online learning on student success. Findings illustrated that Asian, Black, Latino, and White men were more likely to have higher success outcomes when engaged in face-to-face modalities. There were no clear patterns in which online modality was better than others with regards to success, except for Black men. For these men, asynchronous with multimedia was identified as the second most effective online modality pertaining to success. This research has demonstrated the manifold benefits of face-to-face instruction. As such, face-to-face courses seemed to be the best type of modality for community college men. For that reason, careful consideration must be taken when promoting online learning to Asian, Black, Latino, and White men in community colleges. Though, further research is needed to better understand variation in the presentation of online learning materials and the structure of interactions within online classrooms.     

Where is the Research on Community College Students?

An understanding of where community college scholarship is published can be beneficial to practitioners seeking to identify and use scholarly evidence to support policies and programs that promote student success. Such an understanding will also benefit aspiring and new scholars seeking to identify community college scholarship. Unfortunately, there has been little effort to document journal characteristics of scholarship focused on community college students. The present study identified, reviewed, and described community college student scholarship published in P–20 education journals between 1990 and 2014. The study also examined trends over time in journals publishing articles focused on community college students. We found a sizable increase in scholarly work published in education journals since 1990—in particular within the past several years. Importantly, results also revealed an underrepresentation of empirical work focused on community college students published in P–20 education, top-tier, and open access journals. A discussion of implications for practice and recommendations for future research was also provided.