California Community College Completion Project

Abstract

The state of California has the largest two-year college system with 114 colleges and has a set of focused goals to increase degree and certificate attainment and transfer to four-year universities with the end goal to support economic and social mobility. To ensure that colleges are making progress towards meeting these goals the California Community College Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO) has established a set of accountability metrics. These metrics focus on a range of student achievement and institutional effectiveness outcomes. The outcomes are centralized around degree and certificate attainment and transfer to four-year universities and are noted in the system as the completion rate metric.

The research question of the study was “What institutional characteristics, student characteristics, and academic performance outcomes influence completion rates?”

The aim of the study was to develop a model to determine which combination of variables could best predict completion rates. The completion rate was based on the percentage of degree, certificate and/or transfer-seeking students starting first-time in 2011-12 tracked for six years through 2016-17 who completed a degree, certificate or transfer-related outcomes.

Keywords: Higher education, community college, data modeling, completion rates

JEL Classification: I2, I20, I21