Community College Research Initiatives

Data note


February 20, 2024

Examining Gaps in Supporting Underserved Community College Students

Within CCRI’s research, we recognize the unique challenges faced by students from marginalized backgrounds, particularly those belonging to communities of color, who form a significant portion of our community college demographic. Our exploration of data and historical trends reveals that due to a persistent lack of clarity in transfer pathways in STEM majors, these students…


February 13, 2024

Prioritizing Racial Equity in Research

CCRI’s work in transfer is guided by our commitment to center racial equity and anti-racist strategies to support and transform policies and systems that historically and presently oppress our student population into ones that equitably enhance their growth and development in our institutions. Our transfer research presents evidence that such problems continue to persist within…


December 29, 2023

Bridging the Rural Mentorship Gap: A Data Note on Mentorship Programs in Rural Community Colleges

A recent data note, the first in a series, published by the Community College Research Initiatives and generously funded by the Ascendium Education Group as part of its Building Evidence to Increase Rural Learner Success initiative, examines mentorship programs at public 2-year rural-serving institutions (RSIs). Using institutional website data, it explores the prevalence, distribution, and…


October 21, 2023

NTSW: Overcoming the Turbulent Period of COVID-19 Through CCRI Student Support

With Transfer being one of the most understudied yet most frequently occuring phenomena in higher education, it is important to recognize the functions at play involving societal inequities that continually contribute to adversities transfer students face. Considering transfer students already deal with intense adjustments depending on the institutions they come from (i.e. new requirements, new…


September 18, 2023

Listening to Students: New Data Note on Getting Student Input

As STP teams have been working on action plans to expand STEM equity at their institutions, CCRI has documented the process of their efforts through a variety of data collection efforts, including participant observation in coaching sessions and convenings, surveys, and interviews. Analysis of this data reveals the challenges and creative innovations embedded in the…


March 15, 2023

 Transformative partnership praxis for equitable STEM transfer 

As the STEM Transfer Partnership (STP) program approaches the one-year mark, we are able to reflect on the strategies for success that our two-year and four-year institutional partners have developed in their work to advance their partnerships and increase STEM transfer success for low income students. In our second data note on the STP program, we…


August 24, 2022

Structuring STEM Transfer Partnership Success

CCRI’s STEM Transfer Partnership (STP) program has been working with colleges and universities across Washington state to tackle one of the key barriers to low-income student STEM degree attainment: transfer from community colleges to four-year institutions in the STEM fields. Though numerous interventions for transfer pathways have been designed and implemented, there remains a need…


October 29, 2020

New publication on community college baccalaureate student experience

We are excited to publish Data Note 10 in the New Baccalaureate series, titled Washington State Community College Baccalaureate Students: How Life Experiences Shape Baccalaureate Education, Employment and Economic Security and authored by Lia Wetzstein, Elizabeth Apple Meza and Debra Bragg. It presents results from qualitative interviews with community college baccalaureate (CCB) students in Washington state. We use…


March 5, 2020

Growth in Enrollment and Completion of STEM Community College Baccalaureate Degrees in Washington State

Washington State is experiencing substantial growth in the number of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) Community College Baccalaureate (CCB)1 programs. Student enrollments in STEM CCB programs are also growing, providing an opportune time to study these students and their enrollment in and completion of STEM CCB programs. This research on STEM CCB programs shows women complete degrees at…


Community College Baccalaureate Degree Completion in Washington

Complimenting an earlier data note on enrollment by Meza (2019), results of this data note examine the completion rates of students in Community College Baccalaureate (CCB) programs in Washington state by program area and student demographics. We find CCB degree completion rates are rising and now approach the baccalaureate completion rates for students transferring from a community college…



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