Basic Needs Challenges: In October, the Community College Survey of Student Engagement released a publication that describes the prevalence of housing and food insecurity faced by community and technical college students. Researchers surveyed over 82,000 students in 2021 to reveal the following key findings from the report:
- About 29% of respondents are food insecure and 14% are housing insecure.
- Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander students and students with dependent children were more likely to face food or housing insecurity compared to their peers.
- Students who were food or housing insecure reported higher levels of academic engagement, which indicates that these students may be working harder despite having less resources.
- Less than half of students receive food assistance from their college, and one-fifth of students receive utilities or housing assistance from their college.
The report also includes examples of how community and technical colleges from various states provide housing and food assistance. Some practices include creating a housing unit exclusively for students with dependent children, establishing partnerships with local food banks and providing one-stop education centers that offer wraparound support services.
The Landscape of Part-time Students: A brief published by Complete College America reviews new data from the National Center for Education Statistics’ Outcomes Survey to summarize the state of part-time postsecondary students. Researchers examined outcomes for both part-time and full-time students from the survey’s 2011-12 cohort and shared the following:
- About 60% of students who enroll in two-year institutions are part time, compared to 11% at public four-year institutions.
- At two-year institutions, Pell students were 27 percentage points less likely to be enrolled part-time than non-Pell students. Additionally, part-time students who receive Pell grants have a slightly higher completion rate than non-Pell part-time students.
- Only 21% of students who start part time at community colleges complete their education in eight years, 14 percentage points lower than full-time students.
The Community College Experience for Black Students: Recently, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies released a report that discusses the characteristics and educational and economic outcomes of Black community college students. This report aims to highlight the barriers faced by Black students in community colleges. The authors pulled data from a variety of sources to summarize the following key findings:
- From 2010 to 2020, Black students’ community college enrollment declined by 44%. During the COVID-19 pandemic, from fall 2019 to fall 2020, enrollment fell by 18% for all Black students.
- Black students experience the lowest three-year graduation rate (28%) compared to their peers of other races.
- On average, Black community college graduates earn $20,000 less per year than their peers and borrow money to pay for college at a higher rate than white, Hispanic and Asian students.
The report offers recommendations to policymakers and education leaders to make community college outcomes more equitable for Black students, including improving access to basic needs supports and child care, strengthening transfer pathways, disaggregating outcomes by race and ethnicity, and providing tuition-free options.
Adult Learner Mobility: This summer, LightCast released a report that examines the postsecondary outcomes of adult learners, specifically their upward mobility, which is defined by the authors as having a salary after returning to postsecondary education that is both higher than their baseline salary and above $35,000 per year. Researchers studied 270,000 adult learners who had not previously completed a bachelor’s degree to find the following:
- Adults who return to postsecondary education are 22% more likely to achieve upward mobility and have a 140% larger increase in average annual salary than those who do not return.
- Adult learners who enrolled in public institutions experience greater upward mobility than those in private or for-profit institutions.
- Many of the majors that provided the most upward mobility were CTE and STEM related, including engineering, architecture, mathematics, and computer and information sciences.
- Associate degrees in certain CTE fields, such as health care, granted more upward mobility than bachelor’s degrees in fields like business or psychology.
Postsecondary Education in Prisons: Recently, the Vera Institute of Justice released a guidebook that details considerations for peer reviewers and accreditors of postsecondary education programs in prisons. The FAFSA Simplification Act recently enabled postsecondary institutions to expand their programming further to incarcerated individuals. The guidebook discusses the impact of this change; how postsecondary institutions can ensure they meet standards of academic quality when serving incarcerated students; and how institutions should comply with federal regulations necessary to maintain Pell eligibility.
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