Community College Research Center at Columbia Teachers College Gets Major Grant to...

Community College Research Center at Columbia Teachers College Gets Major
Grant to Study Student Completion Rates

NEW YORK, June 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Community College Research
Center (CCRC), Teachers College, Columbia University, today announced a
three-year $5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help
identify the most productive investments in community colleges for the
foundation's Postsecondary Success (PS) initiative. Because of their
open-access admission policies and relatively low tuition rates, community
colleges enroll a high proportion of young adults from low-income families.
The goal of the PS initiative, launched last year, is to double the number of
low-income students who by age 26 earn a postsecondary degree or credential.

Led by director Thomas Bailey, CCRC will produce a set of concrete
recommendations for the PS initiative by early 2012. These recommendations
will be based on a synthesis of knowledge gained from past research, from
ongoing studies by other organizations, and from a new set of CCRC studies
chosen to supplement what is known about increasing community college student
success.

A college credential is key to gaining entrance to career-path employment for
young adults from disadvantaged populations. "College enrollment rates have
grown rapidly over the past forty years, but completion rates haven't kept
pace," said Hilary Pennington, director of education, postsecondary success,
at the Gates Foundation. "Getting students to college isn't enough -- we must
help them get through college."

The studies will examine seven strategies based on promising but largely
untested ideas about what works to increase community college completion rates
for low-income young adults: (1) assessing incoming students' needs, not just
their level of academic skills (this is sometimes called "actionable
assessment"); (2) providing highly structured and focused programs; (3)
offering high-quality and engaging online courses; (4) accelerating the pace
of remedial instruction and thereby reducing the time needed to complete that
instruction; (5) contextualizing basic skills instruction in the teaching of
academic or occupational content; (6) providing underprepared students with
"student success" courses and other non-academic supports; and (7) aligning
programs and services to support student progression and success.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has invested more than $4 billion in
grants and scholarships to increase opportunity in the U.S. by improving
college-ready high school graduation rates and college completion rates. For
more information about the research project and the CCRC, visit
http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Collection.asp?cid=65

SOURCE Community College Research Center (CCRC), Teachers College, Columbia
University

Community College Research Center Teachers College, +1-212-678-3091