Community Colleges

Sharing solutions to urgent problems

MPR convened community college presidents, chancellors, and trustees to help them share strategies for addressing their most pressing problems. At four national meetings in 2008, some 70 community college leaders from across the country discussed the challenges they considered most urgent: fostering career pathways, integrating developmental education, establishing statewide articulation agreements, and serving low-literacy adults. Lessons learned from the meetings appeared in articles in The Chronicle of Higher Education and Community College Journal.

STATE WORK

California

California community colleges enroll nearly one-fourth of all community college students in the country. But less than one-fourth of those seeking degrees at these colleges attain their goal or transfer to another institution within six years. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation asked MPR to examine students' college pathways and the factors influencing their progress. Our work for Hewlett included exploring issues such as graduation rates, college readiness, underprepared students, and the impact of financial aid on student success. View Reports. MPR also developed Measuring Success, Making Progress, a website of California student success indicators, which has become an important resource for policymakers and the public.

Wyoming

The Wyoming Community College Commission (WCCC) contracted with MPR Associates to help them develop a comprehensive, state-wide strategic plan for the state's seven community colleges. Developing it required involving and gaining trust of a diverse group of participants from the public and private sectors who largely embrace Wyoming's belief in limited government involvement in local education. Delivered in 2010, the plan was conceived and rooted in data and information collected from the community college stakeholders. To date many aspects of the final strategic plan have been adopted and it continues to guide the decision-making of the WCCC. For more information, contact Laura Horn.

Maine, Montana, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Wisconsin

To help community college systems in these states improve the quality and usefulness of their data, MPR staff worked with state administrators to upgrade accountability measures and data systems by streamlining data collection and enhancing analysis to demonstrate program improvement.