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This brief is part of the Affirming Equity, Ensuring Inclusion, and Empowering Action initiative. This brief summarizes the research on dual enrollment programs--programs which allow high school students to enroll in college coursework through a partnering college or university--and offers policymakers a strategy to increase college enrollment and attainment via such efforts. Dual enrollment represents a promising lever for increasing educational equity, given its large scale and demonstrated effectiveness for increasing college access and success among its participants. Black, Latinx, and other minoritized students benefit from dual enrollment participation, yet these and other groups underrepresented in higher education often do not have meaningful access to such programs. Strong dual enrollment programs have the potential to raise college enrollment rates among high school graduates and improve college-attainment rates for students who participate. [Eileen and Harold Brown provided additional funding for this series of briefs.]

Dual enrollment equity pathways (DEEP) is a research-based framework for rethinking dual enrollment as a more equitable on-ramp to college programs of study that lead to family-supporting, career-path jobs for students who might not otherwise pursue education after college. The DEEP approach involves community colleges and K-12 schools partnering in four practice areas to (1) conduct outreach to underserved students and families to encourage their participation in dual enrollment, (2) align dual enrollment course offerings to career-technical associate and bachelor's degree programs in high-opportunity fields, (3) advise students in the exploration of their interests and the development of post-high school education and career path plans, and (4) support students by delivering high-quality instruction to build their confidence as college learners. In this report, the authors describe what they learned through field research at six promising community college--K-12 partnerships in Florida and Texas that have begun to extend guided pathways practices to dual enrollment offerings and that have achieved strong results using dual enrollment to expand college access and opportunities for Black, Hispanic, and low-income high school students. For each of the four practice areas, the authors highlight the problems or shortcomings of the conventional dual enrollment approach and explain what the partnerships are doing to rethink and reform dual enrollment in ways that motivate and prepare students from underserved groups to pursue postsecondary pathways to careers after high school. The authors then discuss two multifaceted DEEP leadership strategies that emerged from their fieldwork for (1) establishing a shared DEEP mindset and (2) enabling DEEP practices at scale. They also provide a set of discussion questions for college leaders to ask their K-12 schools in order to develop a strong partnership and shared vision. [For the companion report, see ED631291.]

Dual enrollment (DE), in which high school students take college courses and earn both high school and college credit, has great potential to help make the high-school-to-college transition more effective and equitable--and to do so on a large scale. There is strong evidence that DE improves academic outcomes for students, including completing high school, enrolling in college, and completing college degrees. Some of the most compelling evidence comes from research on the impact of Early College High Schools (ECHSs), but these schools operate on a smaller scale than less intensive models of à la carte dual enrollment. The vast majority of high school students participating in DE take à la carte courses on a college campus, online, or in the high school. While there is evidence that this type of DE coursetaking benefits students, students of color, English learners, and students with disabilities are underrepresented in DE overall, and the laissez-faire approach to à la carte DE tends to exacerbate equity gaps in the high-school-to-college-transition. In this report, the authors present dual enrollment equity pathways (DEEP), a model for rethinking dual enrollment as a more equitable on-ramp to college degree programs that prepare underserved students for well-paying, career-path employment in their 20s. The authors draw on emergent efforts by early adopter institutions of whole-college guided pathways reforms and on additional research to outline and describe support for the DEEP model's four areas of practice: (1) outreach to underserved students and schools; (2) alignment to college degrees and careers in fields of interest; (3) early career and academic exploration, advising, and planning; and (4) high-quality college instruction and academic support. The DEEP model reflects a shift in mindset from conventional thinking about DE to a more strategic approach that requires significant changes on the part of both colleges and high schools. The authors conclude by pointing to growing incentives and opportunities for colleges, schools, and state systems to implement DEEP practices at scale and by identifying costs associated with DEEP implementation. [For the companion report, see ED631297.]

Research shows that earning college credit while in high school increases students' chances of going to college directly after high school and of earning a college credential. Research also makes clear, however, that access to early postsecondary opportunities is uneven, with lower rates of participation among students of color, those from low-income families, and those from other groups underrepresented among college graduates (e.g., English learners and students with disabilities). Moreover, research indicates that to be effective with students who do not have clear plans for college after high school, solely enabling students to take college courses is not sufficient; students from underrepresented groups also benefit from outreach, advising, and strong teaching and academic support building on their interests to further motivate and guide them to pursue postsecondary education after high school. This brief examines research on the five most common college-credit-in-high-school models and assesses their potential as large-scale on-ramps to postsecondary programs that lead to career-path employment for students who have not been well served historically in the transition from high school to college and careers.

This report describes the rationale, goals, and activities of the Strengthening Michigan Humanities (MiHumanities) project, an effort led by the Michigan Community College Association (MCCA) and funded by the Mellon Foundation. The project is designed to strengthen community college transfer pathways in four humanities fields--communication, English, history, and theater--by identifying and using promising strategies to connect community college students to programs of study in these areas and by increasing coordination and curricular alignment between two- and four-year institutions. The authors analyze state administrative data collected by the Michigan Education Data Center to present statistics and trends in community college student course enrollments, transfer, and bachelor's degree completion in a wide array of humanities fields, including the four Strengthening MiHumanities disciplines, and the liberal arts. They also summarize findings from interviews with faculty, staff, and students to highlight promising approaches to strengthening humanities transfer outcomes. An infographic on measures that illustrate the opportunities and challenge of Michigan transfer in the humanities is available inside the report and as a separate document.

Dual enrollment--in which students take college credit-bearing courses when still in high school--is becoming increasingly popular. Community college programs account for about 70% of the dual enrollment that more than one million high school students participate in each year nationwide. Yet dual enrollment can be a big financial burden for community colleges. In most parts of the country, community colleges receive less funding per dual enrollment student than they receive for their regular, non-dual-enrollment students. If community colleges are to continue to provide broad access to high-quality programs, they need to be able to sustain these programs. In this paper, we consider the economics of dual enrollment from the perspective of the community college. We illustrate how dual enrollment may not be financially sustainable in colleges and states where it is offered at a discount, but we also show how community colleges can structure their programs to be more efficient. To support our analysis, we describe case studies to show the conditions under which dual enrollment is affordable and efficient.

This brief summarizes findings from a study in which we examined postsecondary college transcript and degree records from hundreds of thousands of transfer-intending community college students in three states. Our aim was to explore and test metrics that could be useful in the formative assessment of efforts to improve STEM transfer outcomes. Our findings show that first-year completion of a calculus course and first-year completion of a (non-math) science, technology, or engineering (STE) course specified on statewide STEM transfer pathways are both reliable indicators of subsequent STEM transfer success across a wide range of state and institutional contexts. These two metrics are also robust predictors of success among subgroups of students by race/ethnicity and gender. In general, community colleges have relatively low rates of completion of these key STEM courses, and disparities in completion of these courses by race/ethnicity and gender are common. The STEM momentum metrics identified in the study may therefore be useful for colleges seeking to strengthen STEM transfer outcomes and close equity gaps in STEM bachelor's degree attainment. [For the working paper this brief is based on, "Toward a Practical Set of STEM Transfer Program Momentum Metrics," see ED615135.]

Nearly two decades into the "completion agenda" in higher education, many community colleges have adopted collegewide reforms designed to improve stubbornly flat rates of student success and address persistent equity gaps. The longer-term effects of such collegewide reforms may take years to observe. In the meantime, college leaders need to know whether changes they make in the short run are associated with longer-term student success. Measuring the progress and effects of institutional reform is particularly vital in economically important STEM fields. Drawing on administrative records from transfer-intending community college starters across three states, this study develops and explores potential indicators of early STEM program momentum. We find that a relatively simple set of STEM momentum metrics--notably early completion of calculus or non-math STE coursework specified in statewide STEM transfer pathways and, to a lesser degree, the prerequisites to such courses--are reliable indicators of subsequent STEM transfer and bachelor's degree attainment. Our findings provide support for the use of the STEM momentum metrics to formatively evaluate reforms aimed at strengthening STEM transfer outcomes and closing equity gaps in STEM bachelor's degree attainment.

A primary focus among colleges implementing student success reforms has been to increase overall rates of completing any credential and to reduce racial and socioeconomic equity gaps in such completion rates. The focus on general completion may overlook inequities in the type of program students complete, which is particularly significant given the wide variety of credentials offered at community colleges--from short-term certificates to transfer-oriented associate degrees that may lead to bachelor's and graduate degree programs--and the resulting variation in labor market returns among completers. Our study examines racial/ethnic stratification among community college students as they enter and progress through different programs leading to higher- and lower-paying jobs. Specifically, we develop a discrete-time survival analysis using longitudinal enrollment and transcript data on first-time-in-college, credential-seeking community college students from a state with more than 20 community colleges. We track student enrollment, completion, and transfer for up to nine years and examine when equity gaps in completion emerge. We also measure the student achievement of academic milestones (such as levels of credit accrual) along educational pathways that are associated with higher rates of credential completion and transfer over the long term. Results suggest that a significant gap in the likelihood of bachelor's degree completion between Black and White students emerges more episodically, while the gap between Hispanic and White students develops earlier and remains more consistent over time. Our results also suggest that, while all students generally benefit from the attainment of academic milestones such as gaining credit momentum or completing pre-transfer associate degrees, doing so disproportionately benefits Black and Hispanic students.

Advanced Placement (AP) and dual enrollment (DE) are the two most popular programs that allow students to earn college credits while in high school. Researchers have noted several benefits of college acceleration programs on students' postsecondary outcomes. Particularly, these programs offer the opportunity to improve college attendance rates among underrepresented students. Yet, persistent racial disparities in student enrollment and success rates exist in these college acceleration programs. Given the benefits of AP and DE enrollment for students' college success, especially for students from underrepresented groups, racial gaps in participation rates would be important indicators of educational inequality. However, little is known about how racial gaps are distributed geographically and what factors may mitigate or exacerbate these disparities. This report discusses the patterns of racial enrollment gaps in AP and DE programs across thousands of US school districts. To explain these racial disparities in college acceleration programs, the authors analyze how school-related and non-school factors influence these gaps. The authors find that the vast majority of districts have racial enrollment gaps in both programs, with wider gaps in AP than DE. Additionally, the results indicate that geographic variations in these gaps can be explained by local and state factors. The authors also find that district and state policies that seek to provide increased college acceleration programming are associated with wider racial enrollment gaps, implying that greater resources may engender racial disparity without adequate efforts to provide equitable program access to minority students.

Aspen and the Community College Research Center studied nine dual enrollment programs across three states--Florida, Ohio, and Washington--that have narrowed or closed equity gaps in dual enrollment for Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and Pacific Islander students. Based on this research, "The Dual Enrollment Playbook" describes the five principles that college and K-12 leaders can follow to design equitable dual enrollment programs. These five principles reflect the lessons that will make the most difference for historically underrepresented students of color, but these strategies may benefit students from low-income and other backgrounds as well. For each principle, the authors name several strategies, with examples, that the colleges and high schools they studied use to advance equitable access to and success in high-quality dual enrollment courses. When leaders apply these principles and champion practices and policies that prioritize equity as the ultimate goal, dual enrollment can truly accelerate the path to college and meaningful careers for all students. [For "Highlights from the Dual Enrollment Playbook: A Guide to Equitable Acceleration for Students," see ED608547.]

This paper estimates the patterns and sources of White-Black and White-Hispanic enrollment gaps in Advancement Placement (AP) and dual enrollment (DE) programs across several thousand school districts and metropolitan areas in the U.S. By merging several data sources, we show that both AP and DE enrollment gaps vary substantially across districts. We find that the vast majority of districts have racial/ethnic gaps in AP and DE participation, and about a quarter of districts have racial/ethnic gaps equal to or larger than 10 and 7 percentage points for AP and DE, respectively. Available district-level characteristics and state-level policies explain much more of the geographic variation in AP enrollment gaps as compared to DE enrollment gaps, and local factors (either district-level or metro-level characteristics) dominate state-level factors in shaping these racial/ethnic participation gaps. Among all the available district-level characteristics, racial/ethnic composition and racial/ethnic income disparity are the strongest correlates of participation gaps, where districts with larger proportions of Black and Hispanic students and greater racial/ethnic income disparity are associated with larger racial/ethnic gaps in both AP and DE enrollment.

In fall 2018, Community College Research Center (CCRC) researchers conducted site visits at eight community colleges implementing guided pathways to learn how they are managing the whole-college change process involved. These colleges are among the 30 nationally that were in the first cohort of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) Pathways Project, a national demonstration initiative that was launched in late 2015 to show how community colleges could create clearer pathways to program completion, employment, and further education for all students. The full report on this study, "Redesigning Your College Through Guided Pathways: Lessons From Community Colleges in the AACC Pathways Project," synthesizes lessons from all eight colleges visited and shares new findings on how long it takes to implement guided pathways at scale. This report provides a case study of Community College of Philadelphia (CCP). During a two-day site visit to the college, CCRC researchers conducted one-hour interviews with 29 faculty members, administrators, advisors and counselors, and other staff. Researchers also held hour-long focus groups with 15 additional faculty members, advisors and counselors, and students at the college. Based on the data collected, this report describes the organizational change work that has enabled CCP's exceptional progress in redesigning academic programs, student services, and related support systems using the guided pathways model. [For the full report "Redesigning Your College through Guided Pathways: Lessons on Managing Whole-College Reform from the AACC Pathways Project," see ED598443.]

As community colleges across the country implement large-scale reforms to improve student success, they need timely and actionable metrics to determine if the changes they are making in a given year or term will likely improve student outcomes in the long run. In this brief, the authors examine how well nine measures of students' progress in their first year predict student completion in subsequent years, and thus how suitable these early momentum metrics are as leading indicators of the effectiveness of institutional reforms. Based on analysis of student data from all community colleges in three states, the authors find that early momentum metrics do predict longer term success for students. They also find that a key factor in low completion rates, as well as in equity gaps in completion rates, is that many students do not gain early momentum in their first year. College outcomes would be substantially higher if more students met early momentum metrics. These findings indicate the need for comprehensive reforms to community college organization and practice to help more students gain early momentum on their way to earning a credential.

Among state community college systems, the 13 community colleges under the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) are probably the furthest along in implementing guided pathways reforms. All 13 colleges are implementing what they call "Tennessee completion practices"--reforms to help students choose, enter, navigate, and complete programs that prepare them for further education and careers. This report describes how the colleges are operationalizing the Tennessee completion practices in their own contexts, as well as how trends in leading indicators of student completion have changed since the reforms began. Drawing on colleges' detailed self-assessments of their progress and telephone interviews with college administrators, staff, and faculty, the authors discuss how far along the colleges are in implementing completion practices in each of the four major areas of guided pathways reforms: (1) mapping pathways to student end goals; (2) helping students choose and enter a program pathway; (3) keeping students on path; and (4) ensuring that students are learning. They then examine promising trends in first-year momentum among entering students, with a focus on students' accumulation of college credits and completion of gateway college math and English courses in their first year. In addition to looking at overall improvements in early momentum metrics, the authors review the extent to which the colleges have made progress in closing equity gaps by race/ethnicity and age. The report concludes with a consideration of critical next frontiers for the Tennessee community colleges, along with future directions for the Community College Research Center's (CCRC's) continuing research partnership with TBR and the Tennessee community colleges.

Since the publication of "Redesigning America's Community Colleges" (Thomas Bailey, Shanna Smith Jaggars, and Davis Jenkins) in 2015, guided pathways reform has become a national movement in community colleges. As of spring 2018, more than 250 community colleges have committed to undertaking large-scale guided pathways reforms as part of national, state, or regional efforts, and many other colleges are doing so on their own. Guided pathways colleges are redesigning their policies, programs, and services to support student success in four major practice areas: (1) mapping pathways to student end goals; (2) helping students choose and enter a program pathway; (3) keeping students on path; and (4) ensuring that students are learning. Part 1 of this practitioner packet provides an overview of the changes in practice involved in the four areas of the guided pathways model. It also presents examples from colleges and data on improvements they have achieved in leading indicators of longer term success. [For "Part 2: Case Studies," see ED582821. For "Part 3: Timeline and Tips for Implementing Pathways Reforms," see ED582823.]

Guided pathways reforms can take several years to implement at scale because they require a thoroughgoing redesign of a college's major functions, including: (1) organizing programs into career-focused meta-majors to enhance student recruitment and exploration and program improvement; (2) mapping clear paths to degrees, employment, and further education in collaboration with employers and universities; (3) structuring advising to help students choose, enter, and complete a program of study; (4) rethinking academic support to enable students to take and pass critical program courses in their first year of college; and (5) training faculty and staff to facilitate these reforms. Part 3 of this practitioner packet describes the process and timeline for implementing pathways and discusses how colleges can measure the effectiveness of their efforts. [For "Part 1: A Reform Moves from Theory to Practice," see ED582819. For "Part 2: Case Studies," see ED582821.]

Guided pathways reforms require colleges to rethink how they teach and support students. The case studies in Part 2 of this practitioner packet examine how colleges at the forefront of these reforms are transforming their programs and support services by implementing three key guided pathways practices: (1) meta-majors (clusters of programs in similar academic and career fields that can help students understand a college's offerings); (2) career exploration; and (3) intensive advising. The three colleges (Cleveland State Community College in Tennessee, Jackson College in Michigan, and Indian River State College in southeast Florida) are participating in the American Association of Community Colleges' Pathways Project, which is supporting more than 40 colleges nationally to implement guided pathways reforms at scale. [For "Part 1: A Reform Moves from Theory to Practice," see ED582819. For "Part 3: Timeline and Tips for Implementing Pathways Reforms," see ED582823.]

Community college transfer students encounter challenges progressing toward a bachelor's degree, leading to widespread transfer credit loss. This in turn may lower students' chances of credential completion and increase the time and costs for students, their families, and taxpayers. In this study we review three definitions of credit transfer inefficiency--"credit transferability," "credit applicability," and "excess credits among completers"--focusing on the last to examine why students who start at a community college and transfer to a four-year institution so often end up with excess credits that do not count toward a bachelor's degree. To shed light on credit transfer inefficiency, we examine the course-taking behaviors of community college transfer students who earn bachelor's degrees with numerous excess credits compared with transfer students who earn bachelor's degrees with few excess credits. We employ data-mining techniques to analyze student transcripts from two state systems, enabling us to examine a large number of variables that could explain the variation in students' excess credits at graduation. These variables include not only student demographics but also the types and timing of courses taken. Overall, we find more excess credits associated with several factors, including taking larger proportions of 100- and 200-level courses and smaller proportions of 300-level courses throughout students' progression toward completion, and taking 100-level courses in any subject--and specifically 100-level math courses--immediately after transferring to a four-year institution. Findings suggest that institutions could help students reduce credit transfer inefficiency by encouraging them to explore and choose a bachelor's degree major early on so they can take the required lower division (100- and 200-level) courses at the community college, thereby enabling them to take mostly upper division 300- and 400-level courses in their desired major field once they transfer to a four-year institution.

While many students who start at a community college intend to transfer and complete a bachelor's degree, most of them are not successful. One of the impediments to improving outcomes for these students has been the lack of widely available measures of institutional effectiveness in serving transfer students. In the publication "Tracking Transfer" (Jenkins & Fink, 2016), the Community College Research Center (CCRC), in partnership with the Aspen Institute and the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) Research Center, proposed a common set of metrics for assessing the performance of two- and four-year institutions in enabling degree-seeking students to transfer and complete bachelor's degrees. The NSC Research Center has since incorporated the "Tracking Transfer" metrics into its own new Tracking Transfer Signature Report series (see Shapiro et al., 2017, for the first report), which will provide state and national outcomes data annually to allow colleges to benchmark their performance on transfer. In this guide, the authors provide instructions for community colleges that want to use NSC data to measure their effectiveness in serving transfer students. To do so, colleges will need to access both NSC enrollment and degree file data on their students. Based on the methods used in "Tracking Transfer," Part 1 of this guide explains how community colleges can assess their own overall effectiveness in helping students to transfer and complete bachelor's degrees. Part 2 shows how colleges can go on to evaluate the effectiveness of transfer partnerships with their top receiving four-year institutions. [For "Tracking Transfer: New Measures of Institutional and State Effectiveness in Helping Community College Students Attain Bachelor's Degrees" (2016), see ED563499.]

The number of students taking college courses while they are in high school has grown dramatically over the past two decades--particularly at community colleges--but many colleges and states do not track participants' outcomes. Using student enrollment and degree records from the National Student Clearinghouse, this report is the first to look state by state at who enrolls in community college "dual enrollment" courses and what happens to them after high school. The study tracked more than 200,000 high school students who first took a community college course in fall 2010 for six years, through summer 2016 (five years after high school). Key findings included: (1) Nationally, 15 percent of fall 2010 community college entrants were high school dual enrollment students; this proportion ranged from 1 percent in Georgia to 34 percent in Kentucky; (2) Nearly half of former community college dual enrollment students first attended a community college immediately after high school; (3) Among former dual enrollment students who started at community college after high school, 46 percent earned a college credential within five years; and (4) Among former dual enrollment students who started at a four-year college after high school, 64 percent completed a college credential within five years.

This report describes how Ohio's two-year colleges are approaching guided pathways reforms, based on on-site interviews with faculty, administrators, staff, and students at six selected community colleges and telephone interviews with representatives from all 23 Ohio community colleges. In these interviews participants were asked to describe their college's progress in the four main areas of practice in the guided pathways model: mapping pathways to student end goals, helping students choose and enter a program pathway, keeping students on path, and ensuring that students are learning. For each area of practice, the authors highlight innovations the colleges have implemented that can serve as building blocks as they continue to implement guided pathways reforms more broadly. The report includes recommendations for the Ohio colleges as they build on and better align these innovations in ways that help students choose, enter, and complete programs of study that are designed to prepare them to succeed in employment and further education. The report concludes with a brief description of the next phase of research with Ohio partners.

Increasingly, colleges and universities across the country are adopting "guided pathways" reforms to create clearly defined, educationally coherent pathways into and through programs of study for their students. Facilitated by built-in supports, the goal of guided pathways is to increase learning and graduation rates, and to help more students complete programs that lead to career advancement and further education as efficiently as possible. Yet, despite the breadth of the guided pathways movement and the ongoing studies underway to gauge its effect on key outcomes such as credential completion, we do not know enough about what students themselves think of guided pathways. The author of this brief examines data from 48 interviews with first-year students at City Colleges of Chicago (CCC)--a large urban community college system with seven campuses that since 2010 has been implementing guided pathways--to understand students' reactions to CCC's ambitious, system-wide reform. A large majority of the students were enthusiastic about program maps and educational planning--hallmarks of the guided pathways approach--yet a few students had negative reactions to these very same elements of the reform. And nearly half the students reported that they experienced problems with activities such as registration and course planning while new systems and practices were being deployed by the college, pointing to substantial implementation challenges.

While preparing students academically for vertical transfer to four-year colleges has traditionally been viewed as the major responsibility of the home institutions, there is a growing consensus that the receiving institutions play a critical role in facilitating the transfer process and in supporting students' academic success after transfer. The goal of improving transfer outcomes cannot be fully achieved until colleges nationwide are provided with commonly accepted metrics and methods for measuring the effectiveness of transfer partnerships. Using the individual term-by-term college enrollment records from the National Student Clearinghouse for the entire 2007 fall cohort of first-time-in-college community college students nationwide, this paper introduces a two-stage, input-adjusted, value-added analytic framework for identifying partnerships of two- and four-year institutions that are more effective than expected in enabling community college students to transfer to a four-year institution and earn a bachelor's degree in a timely fashion. In doing so, the paper provides a description of transfer patterns nationwide, broken out by key institutional characteristics. Recommendations and cautions for using this framework to evaluate and benchmark institutional performance in terms of supporting the academic success of vertical transfer students for baccalaureate attainment are also discussed.

Across the United States, a growing number of colleges are redesigning their programs and student support services according to the "guided pathways" model. Central to this approach are efforts to clarify pathways to program completion, career advancement, and further education. Equally essential are efforts to help students explore college and career options and choose a program of study early on, help them make steady progress on their program plans, and ensure that they are building essential skills across their programs. This report provides insight into how colleges are planning and implementing guided pathways reforms. It is based on the early work of 30 colleges that are participating in the American Association of Community Colleges' (AACC) Pathways Project and have committed to redesigning their programs and support services at scale. Community College Research Center (CCRC) researchers conducted telephone interviews with project leaders from all 30 colleges to discuss their self-assessments of the extent to which they were implementing elements of the guided pathways model. Researchers also conducted in-depth interviews and focus groups with faculty, advisors, and students during site visits at six of the colleges. In this report the authors describe the variety of ways in which the AACC Pathways colleges are approaching guided pathways reforms in each of the model's four main practice areas: (1) Mapping pathways to student end goals; (2) Helping students choose and enter a program pathway; (3) Keeping students on path; and (4) Ensuring that students are learning. The report also describes the strategies that the AACC Pathways colleges are using to manage the change process involved in implementing guided pathways. All of the colleges selected by AACC to participate in the Pathways Project had previously demonstrated a commitment and readiness to make major changes. The authors discuss these colleges' efforts to create a climate for change, engage and enable the whole organization, and implement and sustain change. Finally, they consider a key next frontier for pathways colleges: connecting their developmental education reforms to their pathways efforts to better enable students to pass critical program gateway courses and get on a program path. If colleges are to enable the majority of their students to enter a college-level program of study as quickly as possible--ideally in the first year--the conventional approaches to placement and remediation will not suffice. Virtually all of the AACC Pathways colleges are experimenting with new approaches to developmental education, but most have not implemented these reforms at scale. The authors outline ways in which, by thinking differently, colleges could sort out many fewer students and enable many more to get on the college-level program paths that the colleges are working to strengthen through guided pathways reforms. This report is organized into three main sections focused on: (1) How the AACC Pathways colleges are designing and implementing key features of the guided pathways model; (2) How colleges are managing the substantial changes involved in implementing guided pathways; and (3) A key next frontier for implementing guided pathways reforms--further rethinking how to help more students succeed in gateway courses for college-level programs. [For the executive summary, "Implementing Guided Pathways: Early Insights from the AACC Pathways Colleges. Executive Summary," see ED574055.]

Texas relies heavily on its community colleges to provide low-cost access to undergraduate coursework for students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Yet, while the majority of Texas students who enter higher education through a community college enroll in transfer programs, only 35 percent transfer and only 15 percent earn a bachelor's degree within six years of starting at a community college. The Greater Texas Foundation asked the Community College Research Center (CCRC) to conduct an analysis of ways state policy could help to improve outcomes for community college transfer students in Texas. To do this, the authors first used National Student Clearinghouse data to examine the performance of Texas community colleges and universities in serving transfer students compared to two- and four-year institutions nationally. Second, they analyzed state transfer policies to better understand the policy environment and identify policies that may facilitate or inhibit transfer success in the state. Third, they conducted interviews with over 50 individuals who work with transfer students at 36 Texas colleges (18 two-year and 18 four-year institutions) to learn how state policy plays out on the ground with students and institutions. This report presents their main findings and recommendations.

Increasing the effectiveness of two- to four-year college transfer is critical for meeting national goals for college attainment and promoting upward social mobility. Efforts to improve institutional effectiveness in serving transfer students and state transfer policy have been hampered by a lack of comparable metrics for measuring transfer student outcomes. In this report, the authors propose a common set of metrics for measuring the effectiveness of two- and four-year institutions in enabling degree-seeking students who start college at a community college to transfer to four-year institutions and earn bachelor's degrees. These include three community college measures--transfer-out rate, transfer-with-award rate, and transfer-out bachelor's completion rate--and one measure for four-year institutions--transfer-in bachelor's completion rate. The authors also examine a fifth measure: the overall rate at which the cohort of students who start at a community college in a given state go on to earn a bachelor's degree from a four-year institution. They calculated outcomes for these measures using unit record data from the National Student Clearinghouse on the cohort of more than 700,000 degree-seeking students who entered higher education for the first time through a community college in the fall of 2007. They compared the average outcomes on these measures six years after these students first started college for two-and four-year institutions by institutional characteristics such as urbanicity, student body socioeconomic status, and selectivity (for four-year institutions) and by state. The authors also examined how well different types of institutions serve lower income transfer students compared with their higher income peers. The following are the main takeaways from this research: (1) Institutional practices--not just institutional characteristics--matter; (2) Among four-year institutions, transfer students had better outcomes at public institutions, very selective institutions, and institutions with higher socioeconomic status (SES) students; (3) Outcomes at both two- and four-year institutions varied remarkably by state; (4) Strong baccalaureate completion for community college students requires both high transfer-out rates and high bachelor's completion rates; (5) The connection between earning a community college credential before transferring and the probability of earning a bachelor's degree is not clear in most states; (6) Lower income transfer students had worse outcomes than higher income students on almost all measures; and (7) In a handful of states, the success gap between lower income and higher income transfer students was small or nonexistent. In the conclusion of the report, the authors discuss implications for institutional leaders and policymakers and identify areas for further research.