Scholssberg's transition theory is used to frame qualitative analysis of narratives from veterans, administrators, and student affairs professionals, examining whether and how institutions can influence veterans' transitions to higher education. Findings suggest how institutional structures assist students in developing navigational…

Racial identity salience is an important component of identity development that is associated with a number of educational outcomes. Using the Diverse Learning Environments Survey, this study identifies precollege and college experiences that contribute to a heightened salience of racial identity, and its relationship to perceptions of campus…

The study's main objective was to provide a detailed description of math Assessment and Placement (A&P) policies in the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD). The study was focused on math because a larger proportion of students place into remedial math than remedial reading or English (Bailey, Jeong, & Cho, 2010; Parsad,…

Policy makers and state representatives have claimed that, compared to the traditional path to a four-year degree, a course of study that begins in the 2-year sector provides a more affordable option. If this is true, then all else equal, 2-year students who obtained a 4-year degree would be expected to have acquired less student loan debt. To…

Using a dataset containing nearly 500,000 courses taken by over 40,000 community and technical college students in Washington State, this study examines the performance gap between online and face-to-face courses and how the size of that gap differs across student subgroups and academic subject areas. While all types of students in the study…

In an effort to improve developmental education students' outcomes, community colleges have been experimenting with acceleration strategies. Models of acceleration allow students to complete their developmental requirements in a shorter amount of time. However, there has been limited empirical research on the effects of accelerating…

The 1947 President's Commission on Higher Education offers insight into higher education policy in the United States. This article reviews and assesses the adoption of its policy recommendations in two key areas: 1) improving college access and equity and 2) expanding the role of community colleges. (Contains 1 figure and 4 notes.)

This study examined factors associated with the upward transfer of baccalaureate aspirants beginning at community colleges. Based on data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 and the Postsecondary Education Transcript Study, a sequential logistic regression analysis was conducted to predict bachelor's degree-seeking community…

College student persistence and dropout have been studied for decades, but little inquiry has focused on community college or private two-year college students. Although about half of first-time postsecondary students enroll in a two-year college, researchers understand little about why only approximately a quarter of these degree-seekers complete…

Three statistics motivate most of the empirical research on the educational outcomes of community college transfer students. First, the percentage of first-time college students seeking a bachelor's degree has steadily increased from 50 to 63% over the last 30 years. Second, during the same period, the number of students starting at a community…

We examined the effects of student (academic preparation, psychosocial, socio-demographic, and situational) and institutional characteristics on long-term enrollment outcomes. We tracked enrollments and degrees awarded for students who originally enrolled at two-year institutions across five years. Our findings have implications for identifying…

In this study, I examine racial disparities in successful remediation in math. I first quantify a previously unidentified racial gap in successful remediation and then seek to explain this gap through a set of mediating and moderating variables. In addition, I test the relative efficacy of remediation across racial groups. (Contains 6 tables and 5…

Although several studies have examined the extent to which tuition influences college enrollment at the undergraduate level (e.g., Heller, 1999; Kane, 1995, 1999), there is no known research that examines how changes in financial aspects of state higher education policy affect the production of postsecondary degrees. Using state-level data…

One of the most vexing problems today involves transforming colleges and universities so that they yield equitable educational outcomes for historically underrepresented students. The traditional approach to achieving equitable educational outcomes has been to focus on increasing the racial diversity of campuses by admitting a higher percentage of…

Little in higher education seems more intractable than the access and achievement gaps between ethnic groups. White students consistently outdistance African Americans and Hispanics in both enrollment and academic performance. Despite the negative relationships between minority status and academic performance, African American and Hispanic…