A descriptive account of the postsecondary academic experience and attainment of traditional-age students during the period 1972-2000.

/pdf/principal-indicators-of-student-academic-histories-in-2snt7gtwzv.pdf

Principal Indicators of Student Academic Histories in Postsecondary Education, 1972-2000.

Since their inception, community colleges have carried out a number of complex and often competing programs or foci. The transfer, vocational, developmental, and continuing and community service foci have become increasingly important as the mission of community colleges has evolved. During their early history, operating primarily as transfer institutions, the student population of junior colleges was not especially diverse-traditional age, male, White, college-bound students filled most classrooms. As times passed and as enrollments grew, community colleges became increasingly diverse in the students they serve and in their purposes for being. Today, community colleges fulfill a multiplicity of roles within their communities, offering a myriad of educational programs and services with a broad and sometimes contradictory set of intended outcomes. This article summarizes pertinent literature related to community college access, mission, and outcomes, exploring the complex intersections between these import...

Community College Access, Mission, and Outcomes: Considering Intriguing Intersections and Challenges

Students were randomly chosen from the class of 1998 and 1999 at a large public university. Fifty in each class were community college transfer students who transferred to the university in the fall of 1996 and fall of 1997; 50 in each class were native students who had entered the university in the fall of 1994 and the fall of 1995. All students were from the College of Arts and Sciences. These groups of students were compared by GPAs at the end of the lower division work (sophomore year for natives and at the end of the second year of community college work for transfers). Students also were compared at the end of their first semester in their academic major to determine if transfer shock was evident for transfer students and if a GPA decline was evident for natives. Lastly, the students GPAs were compared at the end of the spring semesters of 1998 and 1999 to determine if there was recovery from transfer shock for the transfers and from the possible decline in GPA for native students. Retention and gra...

Academic performance of community college transfer students and "native" students at a large state university

Stratified random samples of native and transfer students at a university were compared based on data extracted from student transcripts for 1989, 1990, and 1991. Transfers' first-semester GPAs at the university were less than their community college cumulative GPAs, but natives maintained similar upper and lower division GPAs. Regression analysis revealed, however, that upper division GPAs varied little between native and transfer students when influences of related variables were held constant. Separate regression analyses of transfer and native variables detected that lower division GPA and major were significant predictors of upper division GPA for both groups, but more so for transfers than for natives, with business and science majors earning lower GPAs than others. Although race was not a significant predictor for transfers, it was the most significant predictor for native students: White natives earned higher upper division GPAs than minority natives. The authors conclude that community colleges n...

Community Colleges under the Microscope: An analysis of Performance Predictors for native and Transfer Students:

/pdf/from-black-box-to-pandora-s-box-evaluating-remedial-52dlh7t583.pdf

From black box to pandora's box: evaluating remedial/ developmental education

Drawing on her extensive experience in leading community colleges, Judith S. Eaton shows how these colleges can best serve the needs of today's diverse student population by providing rigorous, high-quality, college-level education.Eaton details the key factors that have caused community colleges to shift from crucial sites of higher education opportunity to ambiguous centers of quasi-educational programs and services. She suggests what actions can be taken to strengthen the collegiate purpose across all institutional levels--providing specific suggestions on reshaping the institutional agenda for faculty, administration, presidents, and trustees.

Judith S. Eaton

Papers

Strengthening Collegiate Education in Community Colleges