Improving Community College Student Success

HI everyone,

Today's OVAE Connection Newsletter includes an interesting resource from a youth development organization in Hartford, CT that focuses on the challenges that community college students face in trying to succeed and graduate.  The paper identifies 5 barriers that typically inhibit success - not surprisingly, noncognitive skills shows up in the mix:

 

  1. Inadequate academic preparation;
  2. Remedial education;
  3. Student financial aid;
  4. Lack of non-academic skills; and
  5. Competing obligations.

Below is the article in the OVAE Connection, and here is the URL for the paper:

http://www.opp.org/docs/PathwaysCollegeStrategies_StudentSuccess.pdf

I hope you find this useful. 

 

Our Piece of the Pie (OPP), a youth development organization based in Hartford, Conn., recently released Pathways through College: Strategies for Improving Community College Student Success. The report outlines the completion challenge facing community college students across the country and summarizes the strategies the colleges can pursue to improve student success. OPP notes that by 2018, nearly two-thirds of jobs will require a postsecondary credential, and job growth for associate degree holders is expected to peak at nearly 20 percent between now and then, double that for the workforce as a whole and exceeding the projected job growth rate of bachelor’s degree holders. Community colleges will, therefore, be called upon to play an increasingly important role in meeting our nation’s skilled workforce needs. 

However, OPP argues, community colleges will not be able to meet this challenge without addressing the “community college dropout crisis.” Citing statistics from Complete College America, OPP notes that less than 30 percent of beginning community college students complete an associate degree within three years, and the completion rates are significantly lower for low-income, minority, and older (more than 25 years old) community college students. 

OPP identifies five interconnected barriers inhibiting student success and increasing the number of community college dropouts: 

  1. Inadequate academic preparation;
  2. Remedial education;
  3. Student financial aid;
  4. Lack of non-academic skills; and
  5. Competing obligations.

While acknowledging that many community college students were not adequately prepared for postsecondary success by the K-12 system, OPP argues “states and community colleges must implement and support aggressive and promising strategies” to increase the persistence and completion rates of community college students. OPP discusses seven promising reform strategies:

  1. Improving curriculum alignment between high schools and postsecondary institutions so students who complete high school have the academic skills needed to succeed in college;
  2. Reforming traditional remedial education sequences to help students begin college-level coursework more quickly;
  3. Increasing early college exposure, through early college high schools, dual enrollment, and summer bridge programs, so students are exposed to college culture and coursework early;
  4. Providing stronger academic, social, and career support services for students in both high school and college;
  5. Reforming current financial aid and college funding policies to provide more financial incentives to students and institutions to succeed;
  6. Strengthening articulation and transfer between community colleges and four-year institutions; and
  7. Improving the alignment between community college programs and labor market needs, as well as providing more career guidance to students, to ensure community college students succeed in finding good jobs after graduation.  

OPP concludes with a case study of its Postsecondary Success Initiative (PSI) in action at Capital Community College in Hartford. The initiative aims to provide community college students with a myriad of additional support services to promote persistence and degree completion. Its first-year persistence rates for PSI students are promising. According to OPP, noting that when “community college students receive the support they need, they can succeed, and experience the economic and social benefits that come with college graduation.”