Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: Learning What Works for College Students at Public Institutions: Examining Outcomes and Demonstration Projects in New Contexts

(Education)

Public institutions serve over 75 percent of all undergraduate students each year, covering a tremendous range of student backgrounds, levels of academic preparation, and needs. Many of these institutions, both community colleges and four-year institutions, have created and implemented programs to support students and provide them with opportunities and resources as they pursue their degrees. Some of these programs are designed to serve students with traditionally low graduation rates, while others are designed to serve high-achieving students. Regardless of the target population and goals, it is critical for institutions and researchers to carefully examine whether programs are having their intended impacts. This panel presents data exploring immediate and longer term outcomes of programs for undergraduate students. The papers include a variety of methodologies, institutions, and target groups of students, presenting findings that will interest policymakers, practitioners, and researchers alike.
In the first paper, researchers take a look at an honors program at a large multi-campus public urban university and use a variety of techniques to estimate whether the program is having effects on incident of completion, time to completion, graduate school attendance, post-graduation employment, and post-graduation earnings. A large administrative data set, combined with quarterly earnings data from the unemployment insurance (UI) system in the state, is used to examine outcomes. The paper demonstrates how multiple statistical methods can be used to best estimate program effects and shed light on previously unexamined efforts. It also presents valuable new data on the outcomes of honors programs to inform policies and programs at a national level.
The second paper presents internal analysis of the CUNY Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP), a program that has already been found to have large impacts on its primary goal of three-year associate degree attainment. This paper takes ASAP’s evaluation a step further to look at longer-term academic outcomes, recognizing that most participating students ultimately aim to earn a bachelor’s degree. Using a six-year timeframe, this analysis examines baccalaureate enrollment, degree attainment and time-to-degree, estimating effects for ASAP students using propensity score analysis and regression techniques. This paper provides an example of how institutions can use rigorous internal evaluation on a continuous basis to more fully understand program effects and contributes to the larger policy discussion of how to support students who begin in community colleges with the ultimate goal of bachelor’s degree attainment.
The third paper presents results from a demonstration project that takes the CUNY ASAP model to a new context, Ohio community colleges. It presents early findings from the project, including how the model was adopted, where changes were necessary for local context, and how the state policy context affected program implementation. Early results from the random assignment evaluation are also presented including first semester enrollment and credit accumulation and retention to the second semester. This paper provides lessons learned for attempts to translate successful programs to new contexts and contributes to the larger policy conversation about the ability of programs to improve community college student success.