The Eight Career Arts

Community colleges, who serve a different mixture of students than do four-year institutions, report even more dismal associate degree completion rates, particularly given the high percentages of students who report that they begin at community college with the intent of transferring to bachelor's-granting institutions. Conversely, borrowing at a reasonable level in order to make timely progress to graduation makes as much if not more sense as other common borrowing behavior- for a house or a car, for instance. A major analysis of twenty years of randomized control trials found that two approaches were most likely to help community college students make academic progress: a multifaceted set of supports to address multiple barriers faced by students, and promoting full-time enrollment. Research points to the value of occupational training in high-growth sectors like health care, information technology, and manufacturing.