Stretching Every Dollar: The Impact of Personal Financial Stress on the Enrollment Behaviors of Working and Nonworking Community College Students

ABSTRACT

Using 1,400 survey responses collected from two large urban community college systems in Texas, this study examined how students’ financial habits, stress, and well-being influenced their enrollment behaviors. Working students, compared to their nonworking peers, reported significantly lower levels of overall financial well-being. After controlling for other relevant predictors of persistence, regression results showed that students with lower financial well-being and higher financial stress were more likely to doubt their ability to complete college. Results for the restricted sample of working students revealed a strong relationship between a student’s financial well-being and stress. These students also reported having to reduce their semester course load and/or stopping out for a semester in order to work more hours to pay for expenses. These findings suggest that initiatives aimed at helping students improve their financial literacy and money management skills may be an effective, yet underutilized, way to improve retention rates at community colleges.     

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.     

The Association Between a Community College’s Teacher Education Program and the 4-year Graduation Rates of Black and Hispanic Teacher Education Students

ABSTRACT

In response to a shortage of qualified Black and Hispanic teachers, community colleges (CC) have developed certificate programs and Associate of Arts degrees in teacher education to address shortages of minority teachers in the nation’s classrooms. We examined one CC’s effectiveness in transferring Black and Hispanic students to university teacher education programs and the association with Black and Hispanic students graduating with a bachelor’s degree. We compared enrollment and transfer student data for the 2003 community college teacher education program cohort to graduation data for native-to-university students of two 4-year universities. Data were analyzed using chi square and phi coefficients. The CC Black and Hispanic students graduated at the same rates as the native-to-university students and higher than their peers of the same races, regardless of major, who began at 2-year colleges at the national level. We encourage CC teacher education programs to invest resources to increase enrollment of Black and Hispanic students to address the growing need for minority teachers to serve in urban communities.     

Improving College Enrollment of At-Risk Students at the School Level

Many federal, state, and local education policy priorities are aimed at preparing high school students, especially those at risk, to be college- and career-ready when they graduate from high school. A number of programs across different institutional entities have been initiated to achieve these goals, encompassing individual partnerships with schools. Many of these programs include a variety of interventions, ranging from college and course counseling to college visits. Although there have been some evaluations of the larger federal programs, and some state and district programs, few have examined national observational data on the impact of these programmatic efforts on college enrollments. This study uses the HSLS:09 database to investigate the impact of specific treatments in at-risk schools on college enrollments. Results show that several of these programmatic initiatives have a positive effect on college enrollment; however, the effects are small compared to some of those reported by other national studies.     

Dual Enrollment Credit and College Readiness

This causal-comparative study researched the effects of dual enrollment and Huskins Bill course experience on traditional-age North Carolina community college students. The study examined course effects on academic success and graduation rate using quantitative statistical measures including parametric and nonparametric means comparisons. The study found that dual enrollment and Huskins Bill courses showed a positive effect on grade point average (GPA) and graduation rate, and this effect is evident in technical, medical, and college transfer programs. The study also showed a positive correlation between number of courses and student GPA and graduation rate. Findings in this study support continuing and expanding dual enrollment offerings as one aid for college readiness.     

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.     

The Role of Career and Technical Education in Iowa Community Colleges

ABSTRACT

This scholarly paper describes and analyzes the role of career and technical education (CTE) in Iowa community colleges. Iowa's community colleges are doing a good job of responding to the changing workforce needs of the state and providing smooth career pathways. However, changes in the population and economy of the state will call for further changes in CTE programs. The distinctive characteristics of CTE in Iowa community colleges, the impact of community college CTE programs on the state's economy, the role of accountability, and the future implications for CTE in the state are discussed. Recommendations based on the results of the study include improving articulation agreements, increasing retention among at-risk students, and increasing collaboration among Iowa's 15 community colleges.     

Successful Concurrent Programs: An EXCELerate Program in Oklahoma

The article presents the implementation and findings of a successful collaborative effort with the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education (OSRHE), Tulsa Community College (TCC), and two local public school districts, Tulsa Public Schools (TPS) and Union Public Schools (UPS). Known as EXCELerate, it's a five-semester dual enrollment pilot program that received state policy exceptions for juniors and seniors to enroll in dual enrollment courses and supportive resources from the participating agencies. Whereas the traditional dual enrollment student is White and college-going, the program's intent was to increase the number of high school students who may be first-generation, lower-socioeconomic, ethnic or non-ethnic. The article identifies three major barriers to successful dual enrollment and completion: state policy, financial issues, and transportation. It also examines how these barriers were eliminated through a collaborative effort. The results demonstrate that over 87% of the juniors and seniors persisted over the semesters, and enrollment tripled among African American and Latino students. The article is constructed to benefit further research and practical application for urban and rural community colleges.     

Correspondence Schools in Alaska: Enrollment and Cohort Graduation Rates, 2010-17

ABSTRACT

The State of Alaska, by some measures the United States’ most rural state, has long supported correspondence schools, a popular school choice option available to all students statewide and used primarily by homeschooled students. This paper first explores Alaska correspondence schools in historical context, and then quantifies capture rate, enrollment by race/ethnicity, grade distributions, and cohort graduation rates for the years 2010–17. Findings include a steady increase in the proportion of Alaskan students enrolled in correspondence schools between 2010 and 2017; disproportionate enrollment of Alaskan students identified as White in correspondence schools between 2010 and 2017; enrollment peaks in late high school during 2014–17; and significantly lower 4- and 5-year cohort graduation rates among students enrolled in correspondence schools compared to those enrolled in traditional public schools.     

Students with Disabilities: Experiences Attending a Two-Year Community College

ABSTRACT

Students with learning disabilities tend to enroll in two-year community colleges more than they do four-year universities, have lower graduation and retention rates as compared to their non-disabled peers, and experience greater academic, social, and personal difficulties when pursuing a college degree. Yet, despite the higher number of students with learning disabilities in community colleges, and the challenges they face as a marginalized population, the literature pertaining to these students is still growing. Thus, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of students with learning disabilities within a two-year community college.     

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.     

IS STUDENT-RIGHT-TO-KNOW ALL YOU SHOULD KNOW? An Analysis of Community College Graduation Rates

Over the last decade, policymakers, educators, and researchers have increasingly sought to understand community college policies and practices that promote students’ success. This effort has been partly driven by an increased emphasis on outcome accountability, but it has also promoted a productive discussion about improving institutional performance. The research reported here has two related goals. One goal is to work towards strengthening the ability to assess and compare institutional performance. We thus have developed a model that can be used to adjust simple graduation rates for institutional characteristics, such as student composition, college resources, size, and location, all of which might influence those rates. Our long-term goal is to understand how to improve student outcomes, so the paper also uses the model to measure the effect of those institutional characteristics on graduation rates. We use data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) surveys, applying a weighted least-squares procedure for grouped data to estimate an institutional-completion rates model. This analysis confirms several hypotheses about institutional determinants of graduation rates at community colleges. Our results indicate a consistent negative relationship between enrollment size and completion. Additionally, colleges with high shares of minority students, part-time students, and women have lower graduation rates. A final significant finding among institutional characteristics is that greater instructional expenditures are related to a greater likelihood of graduation. The method developed here can be used to better assess the performance of community colleges.     

RECENT RESEARCH ON THE ECONOMICS OF ATTENDING COLLEGE: Returns on Investment and Responsiveness to Price

This article examines recent research on the private returns to investment in baccalaureate and sub-baccalaureate postsecondary education, the social returns to investment in higher education, and student responsiveness to prices and subsidies (e.g., tuition and financial aid). The analysis focuses on the implications of recent research on the economics of attending college for policy and practice in a variety of specific areas such as enrollment management; the role of community colleges and other sub-baccalaureate institutions relative to welfare-to-work programs, tuition taxcredit legislation, and the value of investing in credits even without credentials; the development of effective high-tuition, high-aid, and other state and institutional pricing strategies; and the inequities in the distribution of access and choice in higher education that is evident in the widening gaps in participation rates of white and minority youth and higher- and lower-income students, as well as in the growing concentration of lower-income students at-and the flight of middle- and upper-income students from-community colleges.     

Special Edition on Access and Diversity Guest Editors' Introduction

In the knowledge economy, now more than ever, students are encouraged to attend an institution of higher education. Students actively search for resources to assist them in their progress toward a college degree, even before high school graduation. Dual enrollment is an opportunity for students to complete college courses while still in high school, and it encourages stronger collaborations between K–12 and higher education. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between demographic and policy variables in South Carolina technical college dual enrollment programs and first-to-second-year persistence of dually enrolled students once entering college. All participants in this study were high school students who continued at a technical college after graduation. Outcomes were analyzed using logistic regression to determine persistence, defined as first-to-second-year retention. Variables included dual enrollment course type, course setting, ethnicity, gender, and county of residence. Results show that course type and course setting are significant in predicting college student persistence. Recommendations and implications for future research are discussed.     

Implementation of an Early Care and Education Partnership: Perspectives of Diverse Stakeholders

ABSTRACT

Communities are investigating new ways to expand access to high-quality early education. A new early care and education partnership initiative in a mid-Atlantic state offered publicly-funded preschool slots to eligible children in private early childhood programs and provided quality supports to participating private programs. This qualitative study examines the implementation of this partnership initiative from the perspectives of administrators, early childhood program staff, and family members of enrolled children. Researchers conducted 15 focus groups with these stakeholders across five communities and used a directed content analysis approach to analyze the data. Research Findings: The thematic findings from this study suggest that ECE partnerships can improve implementation processes by developing intentional communication plans and paying attention to the needs and preferences of early childhood program staff and families. The study findings also suggest that private programs may be able to counter the loss of preschool enrollment slots to public schools by participating in ECE partnerships. Practice and Policy: Policymakers may use these findings to inform the design of new ECE partnership initiatives or other initiatives that involve collaboration among early care and education programs. Practitioners may use these findings to inform planning for new partnerships they are engaged in.     

“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.     

The Influence of Dual Enrollment on Academic Performance and College Readiness: Differences by Socioeconomic Status

I examine the influence of dual enrollment, a program that allows students to take college courses and earn college credits while in high school, on academic performance and college readiness. Advocates consider dual enrollment as a way to transition high school students into college, and they further claim that these programs benefit students from low socioeconomic status (SES). However, few researchers examine the impact of dual enrollment on academic performance and college readiness, in particular, whether SES differences exist in the impact of dual enrollment. Even fewer researchers consider the extent to which improved access to dual enrollment reduces SES gaps in academic performance and college readiness. I find that participation in dual enrollment increases first-year GPA and decreases the likelihood for remediation. I conduct sensitivity analysis and find that results are resilient to large unobserved confounders that could affect both selection to dual enrollment and the outcome. Moreover, I find that low-SES students benefit from dual enrollment as much as high-SES students. Finally, I find that differences in program participation account for little of the SES gap in GPA and remediation.     

First-Year Course Requirements and Retention for Community Colleges

Community colleges educate a diverse group of students. Effective first-year programs should focus on a variety of interventions that improve learning and retention. Students have academic, intellectual, and social challenges during their community college experience. First-year orientation programs should help students adapt. This article provides a brief history of the first-year experience, gives important guidelines for establishing first-year programs, and identifies the components that should be included in first-year programs.