ABSTRACT

Is Student Success Labeled Institutional Failure? Student Goals and Graduation Rates in the Accountability Debate at Community Colleges 

Community colleges are open-door institutions serving many students with academic, economic, and personal characteristics that can make college completion a challenge. Their graduation rates are low, but community college students do not always have earning a degree as their goal. While individual students may feel that their community college experience is a success, unless it culminates in a credential or transfer to a four-year institution the enrollment is counted as a failure for the college. This report explores different views on whether graduation rates are a fair and valid measure of community college effectiveness. It indicates how these rates can be useful as a relative measure and as a guide for institutional improvement, and suggests other ways of measuring student and institutional success.