Seizing the Moment

Seizing the Moment: Community Colleges Collaborating to Improve Student Success

With the national spotlight on community colleges, we have a unique opportunity to seize the moment and collaborate with K–12 to increase student success. Efforts to increase community college access and open doors to more students must include a complementary focus on improving readiness. Otherwise, remediation rates will remain unacceptably high, and our efforts to increase access may amount to an empty promise for many young people.

The programs highlighted in the report show what is possible when community colleges take action and collaborate deeply with K–12 schools to align expectations and promote college readiness for all students. The time to close the preparation gap is now.

What Higher Ed Can DoFeatured InstitutionsInterested in pursuing this work further?

 The American Association of Community Colleges, the Association of Community College Trustees, and the Higher Ed for Higher Standards coalition are calling on community college leaders nationwide to take the following actions to close the preparation gap:

1. Partner with K–12 leadership to bring more substantial college readiness supports and interventions into the high schools.
2. Identify college readiness measures that can trigger supports in high school, signaling aligned expectations between K–12 and colleges.
3. Revise institutional placement practices to honor college-ready achievement by students on these new measures.
4. Provide first-year students who are not yet college ready with evidence-based remediation opportunities, including co-requisite models and guided pathways to support their success.
5. Work with system leaders and policymakers to adopt statewide policies that encourage these practices.

Seizing the Moment Action Areas

Long Beach College Promise

Chattanooga State Community College

Lehigh Carbon Community College

Action Area 1: Precollege Interventions to Help Students Speed Up and Catch Up

A key element to improving student success and decreasing remediation rates is making the most of all four years students spend in high school — particularly senior year. What can be done to accelerate those students who are ready for college-level coursework, and how can we bring developmental strategies and content into high schools so that students who need more support get it before they graduate? The following institutions will explore this and more:

• Chattanooga State Community College
• El Paso Community College
• Elgin Community College

Action Area 2: Streamlined Postsecondary Placement Practices to Smooth Student Transitions

With the new college- and career-ready standards and assessments, community colleges that agree to honor the “college-ready” scores on high school assessments have the opportunity to place students directly into credit-bearing courses and remove at least one additional set of tests that students must take. The report explores the ways the institutions below are aligning with high school assessments to communicate clear, consistent expectations to students and families.

• Washington Community and Technical College System
• Illinois Council of Community College Presidents
• Long Beach College Promise

Action Area 3: Redesigned Freshman-Year Experiences to Meet Student Needs

Even as they are working with K–12 systems to support higher standards and smoother transitions for students, a growing number of community colleges, including those below, are simultaneously rethinking how they can better support entering students to ensure that they persist and ultimately earn their postsecondary certificates or degrees.

• Lehigh Carbon Community College
• Ivy Tech Community College
• State University of New York and City University of New York

Sign up now!

We are looking for institutions that want to strengthen or deepen their partnerships with local high schools, with a focus on improving the preparation of incoming students to help drive down remediation rates. If you’re interesting in being part of a cohort of institutions advancing this work, please let us know using the form below.

• First Name*
• Last Name*
• E-mail*
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  - SELECT ONE -Institution LeaderSystem LeaderFacultyState OfficialOther
• Institution*
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• Join the Higher Ed for Higher Standards coalition*
  • Yes, add my name to the growing list of higher ed leaders who believe college- and career-ready standards are critical to improving student success.