News Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 15, 2005

More data is needed to ensure student success at community colleges

Indianapolis — Research about our nation’s community colleges must be increased and enhanced in order for these vital institutions to better serve their students. This recommendation is chief among those offered in a report recently released by Lumina Foundation for Education.

Pathways to Persistence: An Analysis of Research on Program Effectiveness at Community Colleges (PDF) is being issued in concert with Lumina Foundation’s involvement in a new community college initiative, Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count. Achieving the Dream helps colleges design and implement institutional changes to increase the success of community college students, particularly low-income students and students of color.

“Research is a crucial component of any strategy to increase student success,” says Martha D. Lamkin, president and CEO of Lumina Foundation. “We feel this report can play an important role in helping community colleges identify and focus on their growing needs.”

Pathways to Persistence was written by education scholars Thomas R. Bailey and Mariana Alfonso. Bailey is the George and Abby O’Neill Professor of Economics and Education in the Department of International and Transcultural Studies and the Director of the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University. Alfonso is a postdoctoral research associate in public policy at Brown University’s Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions at Brown University. Bailey and Alfonso present a critical analysis on the state of current research about four types of educational practice. All are institutional practices designed to increase the likelihood that students will stay in community college until they graduate or complete other educational goals. The four practices are:

Advising, counseling, mentoring and orientation programs
Learning communities
Developmental education and other services for academically underprepared students
Collegewide reform

“The goal of this is to provide background information and analysis to support a broad effort to strengthen the use of data and research in improving student outcomes at community colleges,” said Bailey.

Although the report concludes that much needs to be done to strengthen research on community college program effectiveness, it emphasizes the need for these institutions to move forward and act on the best available knowledge.

“It is important for the colleges to search for the best information they can find and monitor progress as thoroughly and rigorously as possible,” Bailey says.

In addition to the analysis, the report recommends several changes in research that will strengthen community colleges’ ability to choose and assess those policies and practices designed to increase student success. The suggestions include:

Conducting research that is specific to community colleges. The large majority of existing research on higher education focuses on four-year colleges, and insights from this research do not necessarily translate into effective practices for the part-time, working and adult populations that characterize community colleges.
Improving data availability to stimulate a national “best practices” approach.
Strengthening the reliability and validity of research so that studies can better assess whether particular college programs cause measured student outcomes. For example, research should control for, or account for, other factors that can affect student outcomes, such as students’ background characteristics and motivation.
Giving institutional research a more prominent role on community college campuses.

About Lumina Foundation for Education
Lumina Foundation for Education, an Indianapolis-based, private, independent foundation, strives to help people achieve their potential by expanding access and success in education beyond high school. Through grants for research, innovation, communication and evaluation, as well as policy education and leadership development, Lumina Foundation addresses issues that affect access and educational attainment among all students, particularly underserved student groups, including adult learners. The foundation bases its mission on the belief that postsecondary education remains one of the most beneficial investments that individuals can make in themselves and that society can make in its people.

About Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count
Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count is a national initiative to increase the success of community college students, particularly those in groups that have been underserved in higher education.