Panther PATHways

Since 2012, community colleges have made a considerable effort to increase student success and completion. Today, as much greater attention is being paid to drawing stronger linkages between education and workforce needs, institutions are becoming more strategic and deliberate in this work. In particular, many institutions are building stronger with relationships with their K-12 partners to ensure students are ready to succeed in college and beyond. The colleges highlighted in this report are models for how collaboration can promote college readiness and success for all students. The report describes how partnerships at South Texas College, Davidson County Community College, and in the state of New York have made a difference through precollege supports that help prepare students academically for the rigors of college. Aligned advising, clear and consistent course sequences, and accelerated transfer pathways at Miami Dade College, Ivy Tech Community College, Montgomery College, and Prince George's Community College also offer lessons on how to ensure systematic barriers never derail students on the path to a postsecondary credential. Finally, the work by Monroe Community College, Northern Virginia Community College, and Columbus State Community College offer cutting-edge practices to strengthen workforce alignment across the entire education continuum. This report details these practices and offers high-level strategies, as well as concrete actions community college presidents and trustees can take to partner with K-12 to dramatically improve student outcomes. [This report was co-produced by the Education Strategy Group (ESG).]

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.

Building Momentum is an important new report in which the Center for Community College Student Engagement provides a first systematic look at whether students and faculty say they are experiencing guided pathways reforms at their colleges.

Throughout much of the 20th century, the United States led the world in educational attainment and, in turn, economic and social progress. But that advantage has been slipping in recent decades, prompting the president and a host of governors and philanthropic leaders to set goals for America to reclaim its place as the world leader in the education of its people, and to foster the economic, social, and civic progress that would result. In Part I of this report, the authors examine new and existing data on three successive cohorts of young adults whose educational attainment at 25-34 years of age can be measured today or projected in the future. The current cohort of 25- to 34-year-olds graduated from high school in 2008 or earlier and earned postsecondary degrees in 2014 or earlier; the second cohort is in postsecondary education or finishing high school; and the third cohort is in 1st through 10th grades today. In Part II of this report, the authors work to develop a road map to postsecondary success for all. They argue that a key to progress is taking a hard look at how we currently define college readiness and making sure that educators, parents, and students are focused on the high school outcomes that matter the most for postsecondary success. In the last section of the report, the authors lay out the most pressing challenges the nation must solve and where innovations will be needed the most, in order for postsecondary attainment rates to continue to rise and for opportunity gaps to continue to close.