Recent Publications |
NEW!! Career Opportunities: Career Technical Education and the College Completion Agenda – Part 1: Structure and Funding of Career Technical Education in the California Community College
This new IHELP report is the first in a four-part series on career technical education in the California Community Colleges. The project, funded by The James Irvine Foundation, is aimed at identifying ways that state and system policy can best support California’s community colleges in operating CTE programs that meet the needs of their students and regions. In this first report, researchers describe the complex organizational structure and funding arrangements for the CTE mission and the closely related economic and workforce development mission. Researchers also offer a set of criteria, based on a literature review, that characterize an effective CTE mission and identify five key issues that will need to be addressed as efforts proceed to increase the effectiveness of CTE in the California Community Colleges.
Sense of Direction:
The Importance of Helping Community College Students Select and Enter a Program of Study
This new brief is excerpted from the IHELP report and examines the importance of declaring and entering an academic program of study for community college student success and completion. Researchers studied an entering cohort of more than 430,000 community college students and followed their progress over a six-year period through programs of study to completion of a certificate, associate degree or transfer to a university. The study used student course patterns to identify those who entered a program of study in 21 program areas across the liberal arts and sciences and career technical education. Researchers found that entering a program of study is an important milestone on the path to college completion that only half of entering community colleges students reach, and that students who enter a program of study in their first year are twice as likely to complete a certificate, degree, or transfer as those who enter a program of study in the second year or later.
Good News But a Long
Way
to Go
October 2011
IHELP’s brief discusses the findings of a new report from the American Association of Community Colleges titled, The Road Ahead: A Look at Trends in the Educational Attainment of Community College Students. The brief offers an analysis of the AACC report’s claims that the investments made in a community college education are “paying off” due to the higher increase in certificates and degrees awarded by community colleges than in total enrollment. While there is cause for celebration with respect to increases in enrollment and college completions, a closer look at the data shows some reasons for caution related to the prominence of short-term certificates among the increased awards and to minority rates of improvement that lag the improvement rate among white students.
View All Publications |
|
In the Higher Education Policy Community
|
California Community College
Career Technical Education Programs and the College Completion Agenda
Presented
at UC/ACCORD Pathways to Postsecondary Success Convening, January 26, 2012
Accountability: Trends and Issues
Presented at the National Governor's Association Policy Academy, November 17, 2011
The Case for Increasing the Priority of Community College Career Technical Education Programs
Presented at the PACE Seminar for Educaton Policymakers and Scholars, October 7, 2011
*Click here for the podcast of the presentation
A New Script for Financing Higher Education
Presented at the SHEEO Policy Conference, August 10, 2011
View All Presentations |
In the News
|
California community colleges prepare to ration their offerings
Sacramento Bee, January 29, 2012
making Community Colleges
Thoughts on Public Education, December 8, 2011
California Community College Task Force Pushes Big Changes
Inside Higher Ed, October 24, 2011
As Minorities Rise, State College Funds Drop
Sacramento Bee,
October 21, 2011
State urged to form strategy to produce needed degrees
California Watch, October 12, 2011
Graduation rates to play bigger role in college funding
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 10, 2011
The college bubble
Sacramento News & Review, October 6, 2011
State Public Colleges Adrift
Thoughts on Public Education,
October 3, 2011
Task Force Unlikely to Push New Community College Funding
California Watch, September 23, 2011
State Officials Say Difficult Changes Are Needed to Help More
Students Graduate
The Chronicle of Higher Education,
August 10, 2011
California's college system in decline, study finds
Los Angeles Times, July 21, 2011
Report: California colleges in decline
Press TV, July 22, 2011
California 'nowhere near a leader' on higher education
San Francisco Business Times,
July 21, 2011
Documenting California's Decline
Inside Higher Ed, July 21, 2011
Study find the region's education system lacking
The Press Enterprise, July 20, 2011
View All News Items |
IHELP Newsletters
|
January 2012
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
View All Newsletters |
|
