Longitudinal studies that track student persistence each semester serve as the primary measurement of an institution's success or failure. These studies take place at the institutional and state-wide levels as well as nationally through grant-based organizations such as Complete College America. At the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC), where the author serves as both faculty member and honors program director, these studies consistently reveal low college-wide retention and graduation rates. According to Maryland's state-wide longitudinal approach, even after discarding the statistics of students who attempt fewer than eighteen credits, barely two of five CCBC degree-seeking students graduate or transfer within four years (CCBC, "accountability report"). Accordingly, discussion of success rates often strikes a tone somewhere between apologetic and mournful. An occasional collective lapse into hopelessness is not without just cause. The goal of this research has been to find ways of offering honors education to a wider range of CCBC's general population particularly the majority of its population that needs some form of developmental training--in order to make honors a scalable program that can assist the college in increasing its success rates, most notably transfer and graduation rates. By identifying commonalities among students who began their coursework in developmental education and later became members of the honors program, the author hopes to recommend policies that can help a larger subset of community college students gain access to honors and thrive there.