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Tags: AccessJune 2025Mental health has increasingly become a significant barrier to student success in community...
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Tags: Workforce PreparationJune 2025Humber Polytechnic’s Idea Lab is a library initiative designed to support digital fluency...
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Tags:June 2025Congratulations to the 2024-2025 Innovation of the Year Award winners from 35 participating League...
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Tags: DiversityMay 2025Middlesex Community College (MCC), with campuses in Bedford and Lowell, Massachusetts, has a...
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February
2025
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Graduating high school students across the nation are faced with deciding whether to continue their education or enter the workforce. Many seek higher education in order to improve career opportunities and gain economic prosperity and social mobility (Blackwell & Pinder, 2014). The College Board claims that the average annual income for individuals who have a baccalaureate degree is $53,976. The unemployment rate among these graduates is 4.7 percent, which is lower than the U.S. unemployment rate of 6.7 percent (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014). While these statistics look promising, the...
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Students of color, males in particular, face significant challenges in higher education. African American male students, on average, are less successful than other racial/ethnic groups, including African American women. Compared to Asian/Pacific Islander or White/Non-Hispanic students, they are less likely to succeed in both developmental and college-level coursework and are more likely to drop out. Latino students are the least likely of all racial/ethnic groups to transfer. African American students and Latino males have the lowest persistence rates (Elgin Community College, 2010).
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August
2020
Oakton Community College’s Cannabis Dispensary and Patient Care Specialist certificate program is the direct result of a single interaction between a senior Oakton administrator and an Oakton alumnus. The alumnus worked for a medical cannabis dispensary and expressed the need for educated patient care specialists who were able to interact with chronically ill patients—in other words, those with job skills that go beyond being a “weed enthusiast.”
Students and alumni can positively impact curriculum and academic programming as members of career advisory committees and by playing a role in...
Mental health has increasingly become a significant barrier to student success in community colleges, second only to the growing cost of tuition (Gallup & Lumina Foundation, 2024). According to The State of Education 2024 by Gallup and the Lumina Foundation (2024), 64 percent of students who considered dropping out of higher education cited stress or mental health struggles as a primary reason. As reported in Supporting Minds, Supporting Learners (Center for Community College Student Engagement, 2024), 56 percent of respondents experienced emotional or mental difficulties that hurt their...
Tags: Learning Resources
I don't blow a whistle, wear a jersey, or give pep talks in a locker room, but I am a coach--an instructional coach. The players are the teachers at a community college, the field is the classroom, and I help a team to practice teaching methods that engage students and improve academic success. Instructional coaches are on-site professional developers who work collaboratively with teachers, empowering them to incorporate research-based instructional methods into their classrooms (Knight, 2007). Interest in coaching has grown dramatically in the last ten years with school districts and states...
Breaking Down Nonacademic Barriers: Outcomes From the First Two Years of a Community School Approach
Historically, community colleges have lower completion and retention rates than their four-year counterparts. Hongwei (2015) suggested that this is in part due to the fact that leading retention models were designed for four-year institutions, not community colleges. Community college students often face unique nonacademic barriers which impact their retention and persistence rates (Goldrick-Rab, Broton, & Eisenberg, 2013; Goldrick-Rab, Broton, & Gates, 2015; Hongwei, 2015; Troester-Trate, 2017). Such barriers include, but are not limited to, a lack of resources such as food,...
