2006 Articles

What Community College Management Practices are Effective in promoting Student Success? A Study of High- and Low-Impact Institutions

Jenkins, Paul Davis

This study identifies community college management practices that promote student success. Using transcript-level data on over 150,000 Florida community college students, we estimated the effect on the graduation, transfer, and persistence rates of minority students at each of the 28 Florida community colleges as a proxy for institutional effectiveness. We ranked the colleges based on these estimated effects and selected six colleges for field research. We found that the high-impact colleges were more likely than the low-impact colleges to coordinate their programs and services to support student success. We also found that minority students were generally more successful in colleges that had support services targeted specifically to their needs.The study suggests that a critical factor for institutional effectiveness is how well a college manages and aligns its programs and services to support student success.