The Effects of Institutional Factors on the Success of Community College Students

Abstract

Community colleges are the gateway to higher education for many students who would otherwise have limited access to college, particularly those who are from low-income households or are ethnic minorities, firstgeneration college students, or immigrants. Yet only about one-third of all community college students receives any degree or certificate even eight years after initial college enrollment. And credit accumulation and completion rates are even lower for minority and low-income students. Meanwhile, community college student outcomes, as measures of college effectiveness, are of increasing concern for institutional accountability. The Bush administration and many legislators in Congress would like to hold postsecondary institutions to higher standards of accountability, just as they have done with elementary and secondary schools. Institutional reporting requirements to the Department of Education now include data for graduation rates overall and broken out by gender and race/ethnicity. More than half of all states take into account the performance of public colleges when determining higher education appropriations. The use of completion rates as the primary yardstick for accountability puts pressure on community colleges to improve student outcomes. Yet, community college advocates have resisted the use of completion rates either as an accountability measure or as a normative goal. They argue that many community college students only want to learn new skills or enroll for personal enrichment – goals for which such students may obtain tangible benefits. Further, many factors that may create barriers to student completion are beyond the control of colleges, such as a student’s poor academic preparation. Because community colleges must accept all eligible students seeking to enroll, they often have student populations comprised of individuals who would not be admitted to more selective institutions or who may have many challenges to graduation. For such reasons, standard completion measures such as graduation rates may judge community colleges unfairly. Still, measuring institutional graduation rates can provide useful information about differences among colleges, such as leading researchers to identify policies and practices that might promote student success at those colleges with higher relative rates. For an individual college, analysis of its completion rates can be an important way to measure the effectiveness of its policies and practices relative to other similar institutions. This Brief summarizes a research project, conducted by the Community College Research Center (CCRC) and one component of a Ford Foundation-funded study on minority degree attainment at community colleges, which used institution-level data to analyze the effect of community college characteristics on student performance. The study provides an important first step in identifying the institutional factors – characteristics, policies, and programs – that contribute to improved educational outcomes for community college students.