College Profiles

Houston Community College System

Background

The Houston Community College System’s (HCCS) mission is to open the doors to higher education and close academic performance gaps for residents of Houston, one of the most diverse cities in the nation. Its student population of 39,528 is approximately 25 percent Hispanic, 24 percent African American, 26 percent White and 12 percent Asian. It has 20 campuses or centers in the southern Texas metropolitan area. The system’s many, dispersed educational locations along with its large, diverse student body create challenges for coordinating and allocating resources, and for attending to individual students’ needs.

Students come to HCCS with many academic needs. During fall 2003, 92.6 percent of the full-time, part-time and transfer students enrolled in degree or certificate programs needed remedial math. Sixty-three percent required remedial English, and 43 percent needed remedial reading.  The college’s analyses of various data found that financial aid helps students persist as they move from remedial to credit courses, but does not seem to influence their academic performance.

Achieving the Dream Goals

Achieving the Dream will help every HCCS institution provide the structure and support to:

• Create a first-semester and then first-year experience that provides the necessary basic skills and the successful orientation to HCCS services, culture and support systems that students need to succeed;
• Offer effective academic advising and counseling;
• Benefit from a comprehensive Student Progress Audit that provides an early warning system and a tracking element to help students persist; and
• Engage students in their learning and in their connections with other students, the faculty and the community.

HCCS intends to attain these goals by improving financial aid information and delivery, restructuring the mathematics curricula and course delivery, encouraging students’ engagement in learning, adding support to learning communities, improving tracking of students’ academic progress, and applying timely and appropriate interventions.