Guided Pathways Initiative:
Washington Community & Technical Colleges
January 19-20, 2016
Q & A with Davis Jenkins
Community College Research Center at Columbia University
Student Success
Question: Concern with the framework. Students do have time. They are young. What they don’t
have is money. The focus should be on funding. How do we get students to attend full time without
totally revamping college funding and financial aid? What are the students living on?
Answer:
Student voice and qualitative data
I’d strongly suggest doing focus groups with students at your own college and see what they say about
these issues. Many students don’t seem to think they have a lot of time to explore. When asked,
students say they are under pressure to get through as quickly as possible and want guidance on how to
do so. See the 2013 study, “What Students Say They Need to Succeed: Key themes from a study of
student support,” which asked California community college students what they think they need to
succeed in college. Many said they need clearer maps and guidance to help them complete their
programs in as little time as possible.
Financial aid
As you know, financial aid is increasingly time-limited and dependent on students’ making satisfactory
academic progress in their program of study. If students hope to use their financial aid to pay for their
entire undergraduate education (not just a piece of it) they have to get into a program quickly and take
the courses that will count for their program. Many students have to take developmental courses,
which don’t count toward a degree. Many students take credit courses that count toward a degree or
that they can’t transfer toward their major of interest at a 4-year institution. As a result, they waste
time and money. Students blame themselves for what is to a substantial extent the result of problems
with the way community colleges and 4-year institutions operate and communicate (or don’t
communicate) with one another. (See “The Student Experince of Transfer Pathways Between Ivy Tech
Community College and Indiana University” by Public Agenda, which conducted extensive focus groups
with community college students who had transferred to four-year institutions in Indiana). Ensuring
that students take the right classes to achieve their goals—and helping them explore options, set goals
and make academic plans—is within colleges’ control and something they can do to increase students’
Guided Pathways Kick-Off
Questions and answers from Davis Jenkins, Community College Research Center
chances of completing in a more timely way—thus lowering the cost of a college degree for students
and taxpayers.
Question: You discussed Guttmann Community College, which requires full-time enrollment. Do they
provide services to allow that for everyone (i.e. childcare, housing for students with families)?
Answer: In don’t believe that Guttman offers students such support services. In general, while it is
true many community college students cannot attend full-time, we believe many students who currently
attend part-time could attend full-time without additional financial support.
The way colleges currently advise students and schedule courses often makes it difficult for students to
attend full-time. At the Guided Pathways Kick-Off, George Pimentel and his colleagues from Volunteer
State Community College in Tennessee described how they have increased FTE enrollment in proportion
to headcount enrollment by:
1. Making 15 semester credits the default for full-time students (rather than 12 semester credits)
and
2. Moving to classes four days a week in part to ensure that classes are offered all day long, not
just in the mornings; and
3. Block scheduling students into morning, afternoon, or evening classes based on their personal
preferences so they can better manage their family and work obligations around their school
schedule.
Other colleges and universities across the country are adopting similar practices and dispelling myths
that more students than is often assumed can take a full course load and succeed in graduating on time.
See this review of the research by my CCRC colleague Serena Klempin.
Action item: I would challenge you to ask your college’s institutional research staff to track a cohort
of first-time-in-college students over 6 years (including transfer outcomes) and look at credential
completion rates among students who attend primarily full-time versus those who attend primarily parttime.
Research along these lines we have conducted with colleges and state systems across the country
indicates that completion rates for students who attend primarily part-time are so low — even when the
tracking period is extended over longer periods of eight and even 10 years — that it calls into question
the assumption that we are doing students a favor by helping (and in many cases encouraging) them to
attend part-time. (See “Intensity and Attachment: How the Chaotic Enrollment Patterns of Community
College Students Affect Educational Outcomes” by my colleague Peter Crosta). At the very least, we
need to make clear to students how long it will take them to complete degrees if they attend part-time.
Does your colleague make the true cost clear to students? My experience is that many colleges do not.
Guided Pathways Kick-Off
Questions and answers from Davis Jenkins, Community College Research Center
National research has found that the longer students take to get a degree, the higher the cost per
degree is for them and for taxpayers. See the report “The Real Cost of College: Time and Credits to
Degree at California State University” from the California State University System.
Question: Are 4-year institutions committed to accepting our graduates from AA Guided Pathways
programs as juniors? Articulation!
Answer: A key goal of guided pathways is to ensure that students seeking to transfer take the courses
they will need to transfer with junior standing in their major field of interest. As you know, the
Washington public 2- and 4-year institutions have developed statewide field-specific articulation
agreements (especially the Associate of Science in Transfer and the field-specific DTAs) that research by
SBCTC suggest work very well for students. (See Washington State Board for Community and Technical
Colleges (WSBCTC), Associate of Science Transfer and STEM Focused Direct Transfer Agreement –
Associate of Arts, Research Report 14-3, Olympia, WA: Author, November 2014). Too few students who
transfer complete these transfer degrees before transferring, however. Guided pathways is designed to
ensure that more students follow these paths and thus will be assured that they their credits will be
accepted toward degrees in their desired major fields.
Many of these questions are addressed in the book I wrote with Thomas Bailey and Shanna Jaggars,
Redesigning America’s Community Colleges: A Clearer Path to Student Success (Harvard University Press,
2015). See also the piece by Rob Johnstone on “Guided Pathways Demystified: Exploring Ten Commonly
Asked Questions about Implementing Pathways.”
Institutional Success
Question: You mentioned assessment of student learning outcomes as a key component of guided
pathways. Do you have examples of 2 year institutions successfully assessing coherent program
outcomes outside of prof/tech programs? (e.g., areas of study)
Answer:
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Indian River State College, Florida
LA Trade Tech
LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Question: Are there studies or successful examples of colleges which have coordinated or shared
pathways, to ease student transfer and pool knowledge resources?
Answer: The Florida state community colleges are required by state law in 2014 to require all
students to enter a “meta-major” within 30 credits. The state department of education dictated what
the meta-majors should be. I don’t think that was a good move because the workforce needs of
Guided Pathways Kick-Off
Questions and answers from Davis Jenkins, Community College Research Center
different regions differ. Colleges in Florida have been collaborating on how to implement guided
pathways to meet the mandate.
There are similar statewide collaborative efforts to implement guided pathways in Arkansas,
Connecticut, Indiana, Georgia, Michigan, New Jersey, and Tennessee as well as in Chicago and Houston
(University of Houston and 4 community colleges). Other states like Oregon are considering doing the
same.
Question: Is there a clear case of success with guided pathways that we can refer doubters to with
comparative success data (before/after)?
Answer: Guided pathways involve systemic changes to college practices: therefore, the approach
can’t be evaluated the way one would a discrete programmatic intervention like a learning community
or supplemental instruction. I would encourage you to go through a program mapping process.
Cleveland State Community College and Volunteer State Community provide good examples of how to
do this in small and medium-size colleges. St. Petersburg College in Florida is a good model of how to do
this in a large community college. After you complete the program mapping process, if you think that
your programs and support services are adequately designed to help students enter and complete
programs and build skills across programs, then maybe the doubters would be right about your college.
But if the exercise reveals all sorts of practices that don’t make educational sense and that create
barriers for students — as colleges that have done this generally find — then maybe the doubters
should reconsider.
Question: Are there any student surveys that show change in behavior/attitude among students
enrolled in Guided Pathways programs?
Answer: Yes. Contact Victor Fichera (use my name), principal investigator for Academy Assessment
Protocol, Queensborough Community College, for results of surveys QCC has conducted of student
attitudes toward the college’s “freshmen academies”—broad program areas that all students are
required to enter from the start. Also, my colleague Melinda Karp and I are currently conducting
research on student views and behaviors at college that have implemented guided pathways reforms.
We plan to publish our findings later this year.
Successful Implementation: Practical First Steps
Question: Is it worthwhile to start small with guided pathways (a couple of programs) or is an
overhaul more effective sooner?
Answer: Colleges and universities that have been most successful implementing guided pathways
reforms have gone “all-in.” Guided pathways is by design a systemic reform. Doing pieces won’t
produce the sort of improvements that are possible when the full model is implemented. This is
Guided Pathways Kick-Off
Questions and answers from Davis Jenkins, Community College Research Center
strongly supported by research on organizational change and performance improvement in higher
education, K-12 and other fields.
However, that is not to say that colleges can or should change everything overnight. As I said in my
presentation, implementing guided pathways at scale takes at least five years. (See the time table
outlined in “Implementing Guided Pathways: Tips and Tools.”) Leaders at the City Colleges of Chicago,
Miami Dade, Georgia State University and elsewhere emphasize that implementing changes at scale is a
messy process. Version 1.0 is never perfect, but colleges will learn from the 1.0 experience so that 2.0 is
better. (See the case study about the change process at Miami Dade College I wrote with Lenore Rodicio
and Susan Mayer).
A key early step in implementing pathways is to engage faculty from across departments and advisors to
step back and more clearly map out program pathways for students—indicating which courses they
should take in what sequence and what milestones they should be achieving to show they are on track.
Colleges that have done this have found it very enlightening, revealing barriers we have created to
learning and advancement that we have created over time with policies and practices adopted over time
without looking at the effect on students. (The exercise that David Beyer and Luke Robins led you
through at the Institute was designed to give a small taste of how confusing things are for students.)
I think the mapping process will give your college a good sense of whether implementing guided
pathways would be worthwhile for your students and what will be involved for your college.
Question: What is a college success course? Do students have to retake the college success course if
they change majors?
Answer: Ideally, college success courses have the following elements:
1. Teach students note taking, study skills, time management and other “college success” skills
that will help them succeed in college;
2. Expose students to college program offerings and related transfer and career opportunities;
and
3. Support students to choose a direction and develop an academic plan that they will be required
to follow (and that the college uses to track their progress).
Under guided pathways, students take college success courses customized to their initial field of interest
to enable them to explore that field and see if they want to continue in it or switch to another. See this
piece “Redesigning a Student Success Course for Sustained Impact: Early Outcomes Findings” by my
CCRC colleagues on how to design these courses effectively.
Guided Pathways Kick-Off
Questions and answers from Davis Jenkins, Community College Research Center