A primary focus of our work at the Belk Center is to support community college leaders and educators in making evidence-based decisions that advance equitable student outcomes. The purpose of this guide is to curate a hub of information for community colleges interested in valuable resources that can continue to inform decisions that support student success in North Carolina.  

Our partners at the Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program provide a useful framework for defining student success. Based on their work with community colleges, they have observed that excellent community colleges demonstrate high-quality outcomes in learning, completion and transfer, labor market outcomes, and equity. In North Carolina, research and practice points to areas of strength and opportunities to address the leaks in our education pipeline. The Belk Center believes that community colleges are critical to the social and economic mobility of North Carolinians and the economic competitiveness of their regions.

If you have additional resources to share for this guide, please complete our form here.

Equity

This section provides resources related to supporting students from traditionally underserved backgrounds in higher education including Black, Latinx, and Indigenous students. We encourage utilizing equity related to strategies to support your action plans across multiple areas including the K12 to community college pipeline, partway home students, retention/persistence, and completion. 

Reports and Data Resources:

North Carolina Leaky Pipeline Report

Tomorrow’s jobs increasingly demand a highly trained workforce. To meet projected demands, at least 60% of North Carolina workers will need a postsecondary degree...

Opportunity Insights

Our mission is to identify barriers to economic opportunity and develop scalable solutions that will empower people throughout the United States...

Economic Tracker

Explore the Opportunity Insights with the real-time Economic Tracker. Track the economic impacts of COVID-19 on people, businesses, and communities across the United States in real time.

Using Big Data Course

This page provides lecture materials and videos for a course taught by Raj Chetty and Greg Bruich at Harvard University entitled, "Using Big Data to Solve Economic and Social Problems."

CREED Equity Report

With the release of our two reports, “Deep Rooted: A Brief History of Race and Education” and “E(race)ing Inequities: The State of Racial Equity in North Carolina Public Schools,” we hope to initiate...

NCCC Equity Report

This report calls attention to patterns of inequity at the system and college levels by documenting gaps in access and academic progress across demographic populations, specifically race/ethnicity and gender...

Structural Equity

"Big-Picture Thinking & Partnerships That Improve Community College Student Outcomes": Community colleges play a vital role in creating a more equitable society through educational opportunity...

Race and Ethnicity in Higher Ed

This page provides a data-informed foundation for those working to close persistent equity gaps by providing a glimpse into the educational pathways of today’s college students...

Meeting the Needs of Underserved Students

The 21st century college student population is the most diverse in our nation’s history, characterized by the intersection of race, gender, sexual orientation...

Messaging to Underrepresented Populations

Based on focus groups and survey results, Aspen gained insights into how to message the value of community college programs to opportunity youth, unemployed adults...

Equity-Focused National Organizations:

Complete College America

Mission: Established in 2009, Complete College America is a bold national advocate for dramatically increasing college completion rates and closing equity gaps by working with states, systems, institutions, and partners...

The Education Trust

Mission: The Education Trust is a national nonprofit that works to close opportunity gaps that disproportionately affect students of color and students from low-income families. Through our research...

Achieving the Dream

Mission: To lead and support a national network of community colleges to achieve sustainable institutional transformation through sharing knowledge, innovative solutions and effective practices...

Frontier Set

The Frontier Set is a diverse set of high-performing two-and four-year colleges, universities, and state systems, all committed to significantly increasing student access and success and eliminating...

Equity-Focused Organizations in North Carolina:

Color of Education

Mission: Achieving racial equity in education across North Carolina through building connections and engagement across fields of research, policy and practice. We seek to achieve this mission by increasing...

Center for Racial Equity in Education

Mission: Through research, coalition building, and technical assistance, the Center for Racial Equity in Education (CREED) works to close opportunity gaps for all children in P-20 education, especially children of color...

High School Students

This section provides resources related to recruitment of high school students upon graduation, specifically pertaining to those who intend to go to college but do not enroll. We encourage utilizing these resources to support strategies related to K-12 partnerships and increasing enrollment.

Reports and Data Resources:

Publications on the High School to College Transition

CCRC conducts research on programs and policies designed to prepare high school students for college, including short-term readiness programs...

50-State Comparison: Dual/Concurrent Enrollment Policies

Education Commission of the States researched dual/concurrent enrollment policies in all states to provide this comprehensive resource...

A Leg Up on College:

The Scale and Distribution of Community College Participation Among California High School Students: Research shows that dual enrollment—a practice in which high school students take college courses while...

Partway Home

This section provides resources related to partway home students, or adult learners who have accumulated some college credit. We encourage utilizing these resources to support strategies related to increasing enrollment, retention/persistence, and completion.

Reports and Data Resources:

Addressing Enrollment Challenges: Recruiting the Adult Learner

Jonathan Miller, Dean of Students at Northern Essex Community, discusses the enrollment challenges faced in recruiting the adult learner...

A Major Step: What Adults Without Degrees Say About Going (Back) to College

In an effort to help higher education institutions and other stakeholders...

High cost, uncertain benefits - adult learners deterred

The path to economic mobility increasingly runs through postsecondary education. However, many adults without a college degree aspire to some higher credential...

Some College, No Degree

Signature Report 7 examines the “some college, no degree” phenomenon to better understand the value of some college in its own right and as well as the contribution the “some college, no degree” population...

The Post-Traditional Learners Manifesto Revisited

Bernadine is a 45-year-old, African American mother of three who is among the millions of Americans already in the workforce and actively seeking to build their...

A Focus on Non-Completers

Efforts to develop North Carolina’s talent pipeline must include strategies for reaching people of all ages and experiences. This paper explores opportunities for upskilling our existing workforce...

How students who start college but don’t graduate feel about education

For adults with some college credit but no degree, the challenge of balancing work with going to class is the most common reason they end up leaving college...

Statewide Partway Home Initiatives:

• Tennessee Reconnect
• Complete to Compete (Mississippi)
• Reach Higher (Oklahoma)
• You Can. Go Back. (Indiana)
• Disengaged Adults Returning to College Grant Program (New Jersey)

Labor Market Outcomes

In order to ensure that students are being placed upon completion, it is vital to use labor market outcomes to predict the institution’s geographic labor needs and support programs, certificates, and continuing education in those areas. We encourage utilizing these resources to support strategies related to transfer, workforce, and completion.

Reports and Data Resources:

Preparing the Workforce in Today’s Community Colleges

Issues and Implications for Higher Education Leaders | Serving more than 40 percent of U.S. undergraduates and with a strong history of preparing the workforce...

Student Success for Life: How Colleges Prepare Graduates for Careers

Inside Higher Ed’s new print-on-demand compilation of articles. You may download...

Talent Development Pipeline for Youth:

Creating a Career-Ready Workforce in NC | Issues facing the talent development of youth today are not new. A 1975 national policy brief by Hoyt highlights that the...

Better Together: Enhancing Partnerships in Mississippi

Enhancing partnerships in career and technical education (CTE) is essential to community colleges’ efforts to serve students, businesses, and local communities.

LadderzUP:

A Strategic Public-Public Partnership for Regional Workforce Development | Since its founding in 1961, Monroe Community College (MCC), a public institution within the State University of New York...

The Indispensable Institution

A report from Opportunity America says community colleges are in the best position to upskill and train millions of Americans who lost their jobs because of the coronavirus pandemic...

Preparing Tomorrow’s Workforce:

The Global Learning Imperative for Career and Technical Education Programs at Community and Technical Colleges | Learners today are no longer preparing solely for careers in their communities...

Partnerships for a Future-Ready Workforce

This report details how community colleges and businesses can form strong partnerships, national employment trends and postsecondary attainment...

The College-Work Balancing Act

ACCT | How can community colleges support students’ goals of finding success in the workforce, both today and the future? This issue brief builds upon ACCT’s previously published report...

General Data Resources: 

• North Carolina Community College System Data Dashboards
• North Carolina Community College System State and Federal Reporting Requirements
• North Carolina Chamber of Commerce 2030 Dashboard
• University of North Carolina System Dashboards 
• NC Tower
• North Carolina Chamber of Commerce Labor Supply/Demand Analyzer

Retention and Credential Completion

This section provides resources related to retention and credential completion for community college students. We encourage utilizing these resources to support strategies related to completion, retention, and persistence. 

Reports and Data Resources:

Early Momentum Metrics Leading Indicators for Community College Improvement

As community colleges across the country implement large-scale reforms...

15 to Finish

These folders have everything you need to launch a campus-wide campaign to promote 15 to Finish. No matter what size your institution, you can combine the included assets to suit the needs of your campus.

Guided Pathways

Frontier Set

The Frontier Set is a national collaborative of 29 colleges and universities and two state systems of higher education. Its purpose is to identify, understand and share what works to accelerate student success...

Building Guided Pathways to Community College Student Success

Among state community college systems, the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) is probably the furthest along in implementing guided pathways reforms...

Guided Pathways for Success:

A Game Changer for Midland College: Midland College (MC) has been named as a Cadre 1 community college to participate in an integrated statewide approach to student success...

Equity Conscious Community College Pathways

The Equity Conscious Community College Pathways (EC3P) is a comprehensive national project focused on building student and practitioner pipelines...

Guided Pathways at Community Colleges:

From Theory to Practice: Imagine that you are a student at your institution. If you sit down and explore your college’s website, are you able to pick a program and create a plan...

Retention

Moraine Valley Retention Academy Leads to Process Improvements and Increased Student Success:

Those at Moraine Valley Community College (MVCC) in Palos Hills...

Completion

Brookings Institute

Improving community college completion rates by addressing structural and motivational barriers: Evidence suggests that helping students navigate the college environment and connect their coursework...

Student Persistence, Completion, and Transfer

Student persistence and completion rates at community colleges are low, particularly among low-income students, students of color, and first-generation students...

Part-time Students

Even One Semester: Full-Time Enrollment and Student Success

This report is dedicated to all the students who desire to be full-time but, because of competing demands in their lives, attend part-time. The report is also dedicated to...

New Equity Data Shows you Should Focus on Part-Time Students

Here’s a sobering fact about the community college part-time student population: 47% of part-time students believe they will graduate...

Student Services

Student services play a vital role in providing holistic support for students including academic advising, financial aid, and identity based programming. We encourage utilizing these resources to support strategies related to retention/persistence, the K12 to community college pipeline, partway home students, and completion.

Reports and Data Resources:

How to file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)

Beginning October 1, 2019, students can begin completing the 2020-2021 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) at www.fafsa.gov.

Advising/Success Coaching

How Wiregrass Georgia Technical College achieved enrollment gains by transforming its advising model

Student success has always been at the heart of WGTC’s advising model...

Publications on Student Engagement and Relationships

What are the nonacademic skills, behaviors, and experiences that contribute to college persistence and completion?

Success Coaching

(First in the World Grant) Carolina Works is introducing proactive and individualized success coaching at 10 North Carolina Community Colleges. Carolina Works’ unique combination of targeted student success...

Academic Advising

The NC Community College System recognizes that effective academic advising is at the core of student success. Academic advising is a collaborative process which assists students in the clarification...

Show Me the Way:

The Power of Advising in Community College: Advising is powerful because it attends to core elements of each student’s success: setting academic goals based on transfer and/or career interests...

Designing a System for Strategic Advising

Students attending community colleges are faced with a variety of complex procedures and decisions. They must not only navigate financial aid applications...

Emergency Aid

Emergency Aid for Higher Education

Ascendium Education Group (formerly known as Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation & Affiliates) has invested heavily to advance postsecondary success for low-income students, students of color, and...

Landscape Analysis of Emergency Aid Program

There is no shortage of discussion on how college costs affect students’ persistence toward a degree. Ample research has shown that one barrier to timely degree...

Beyond the Food Pantry: Guide to Emergency Grant Aid Distribution

Emergency aid is a critical college retention tool for supporting students who face economic shortfalls that might disrupt their college education...

Financial Aid

SwiftStudent Financial Aid

This is a resource on how to request a change to a financial aid package. It addresses the barriers students face and saves time for financial aid officers. SwiftStudent is the only free...

Publications on Financial Aid, Tuition, and Student Employment

How do financial aid, merit scholarships, and employment affect student experiences and outcomes?

FAFSA Completion

How to file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)

Beginning October 1, 2019, students can begin completing the 2020-2021 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) at www.fafsa.gov.

Fast Track FAFSA Completion

...With rising tuition costs, college affordability presents a significant barrier for many students and their families. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), a form used to...

FAFSA Frenzy NC

With today's economic uncertainty from COVID-19, it is more important than ever to earn your college degree or certificate to prepare for a high-demand job. Filling out the FAFSA is your first step...

EdWorking Papers

Conditions under which college students can be responsive to nudging: Success in postsecondary education requires students to engage with their institution both academically and administratively...

Health Services

Cuyahoga Community College: Help Is Here

Community college faculty, staff, and administrators face many challenges as they work to support student success, and the mental health of students ranks...

Enhancing Health Services for Students

As much as the faculty, classified professionals, and administration at San Diego City College take pride in the 1,500 classes...

Holistic Student Supports

Community College Resource Finder

Search for free or reduced cost services like medical care, food, job training, and more on your North Carolina Community College Campus...

Holistic Student Supports

Supporting the student experience from connection through completion requires more than offering a wide menu of student programs and services...

ASAP (Accelerated Study in Associate Programs)

Kingsborough Community College (ASAP Program)

The Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) at Kingsborough Community College is an exciting program that enables eligible students to earn...

Scaling Success:

Lessons From the ASAP Expansion at Bronx Community College: In response to persistently low degree completion rates, the City University of New York (CUNY), with funding from the Office...

Steps Toward Sustainability:

A Case Study of Lorain County Community College’s Comprehensive Student Success Program: In 2014, as part of the Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) Ohio Demonstration, Lorain County...

Student Parents

Promising Community College Practices for Student Parent Success

More than 2 million community college students in the United States are parents of children under 18. Student parents benefit from...

Student parents underserved

Colleges need to do more for students who are parents, Generation Hope says in a new report. According to a survey conducted by the community-based nonprofit focused on college completion...

Transfer

The need for equitable and efficient transfer practices and policies has never been more urgent in the state of North Carolina. With the statewide attainment goal of increasing the number of North Carolinians with high-quality credentials by 400,000 people in the next 10 years, transfer pathways that support students to earn degrees and enter the workforce are essential. We encourage using these resources to support strategies related to transfer, completion, and retention/persistence.

Reports and Data Resources:

Front Range Community College's Bridges to Baccalaureate Program Helps Students Transfer and Graduate

While many students entering community...

Transfer Workshop Action Guide Template

Instructions: Review your institution’s data report. Using the guiding questions, jot down your reflections in the box below. Once you complete the exercise...

Tracking Transfer

Recommending a comprehensive set of five measures as a new way to track which institutions are effective in serving transfer students and which states have a robust transfer pipeline from community colleges...

Transfer Playbook

National surveys reveal that 80 percent of students who begin in a community college aim to earn a bachelor’s degree, but only 14 percent achieve that goal within six years. It doesn’t have to be that way...

The Transfer Playbook: Essential Community College Practices

These practices are based on The Transfer Playbook: Essential Practices for Two- and Four-Year Colleges by Joshua Wyner
and KC Deane...

The Transfer Playbook: Tool for Assessing Progress Toward Adoption of Essential Transfer Practices for Community Colleges

Overview: This tool is designed to help...

Measuring Your College’s Effectiveness Serving Transfer Students

The tables and definitions below detail a basic set of metrics your college can compute...

Understanding and supporting the successful transfer of community college students to four-year institutions webinar

AACC and the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation...

Pathway Design II

Pathways to Transfer and Employment Advance Work Overview: After reading the Transfer Playbook, convene your pathways team and as a group, complete the Tool for Assessing Progress toward Adoption of...

Transfer and Employment Program Mapping Template

Use this template to map the relationships between the institution’s programs in a particular meta-major and related jobs and further education opportunities...

Transfer Conditions For LatinX Tejanx Community College Students

Latinx students who graduate from high school are less likely than their White counterparts to start off at a four-year university and more likely to enter...

Teaching and Learning

Reports and Data Resources:

Center for Teaching & Learning Matrix

In 2017, the American Council on Education (ACE) released A Beta Faculty Development Center Matrix as a complementary tool to the ACE publication...

How Did Six Community Colleges Design Supports for Part-Time Faculty?

A Report on Achieving the Dream’s Engaging Adjuncts Project: This report discusses an...

Institutional Commitment to Teaching Excellence

Assessing the Impacts and Outcomes of Faculty Development: Higher education is undergoing an important sea change, where student success and learning is...

North Carolina State University Scholarship of Teaching & Learning

The Office of Faculty Development strives to support faculty members in all of their research goals, including research in the area of SoTL...

Teaching and Learning Centers:

Achieving the Dream's Teaching and Learning Services

Effective teaching and learning practices are at the heart of maximizing student outcomes. We help colleges build the infrastructure they need to offer high quality teaching and...

Harper College's Harper Academy

Life may never actually have been simple, but hopefully there was a time in your early years when the demands of your daily life were lighter and your responsibilities were fewer. For one afternoon, join us for...

LaGuardia College's Center for Teaching and Learning

The LaGuardia Center for Teaching and Learning is a hub for professional innovation, reflection, collaboration and transformation. Engaging the collective expertise of...

Sinclair Community College's Center for Teaching and Learning

Thank you for participating in this year’s virtual Fall Conference and FFPDD. You will find the recordings of the day’s presentations...

Valencia College’s Centers for Teaching/Learning Innovation

A place where faculty learning, collaboration, innovation and scholarship contribute to the greater success of our students, faculty and our community...

Durham Technical Community College’s Teaching-Learning Center

The Teaching-Learning Center at Durham Technical Community College supports the college’s vision to be a learning college. In our interpretation of a learning college...

Fundraising

This section provides organizations that typically fund community colleges and related projects. We encourage sharing your institution’s action plan and strategies to build connections and potentially receive funding.

Organizations with Additional Resources