Community Colleges Working to Improve Student Success

In recent years greater attention has been paid to perceived low success rates at our community colleges. Success rates are a concern for Atlantic Cape Community College, Cumberland County College and indeed for all of New Jersey’s community colleges. It is our purpose, in this commentary, to provide a broader context to frame this important discussion.
Since their creation in the 1960s, New Jersey’s community colleges have served as open door institutions providing access to higher education for all who desire to learn, regardless of wealth, heritage or previous academic experience. Some have called community colleges the “Ellis Island of higher education,” because we provide greater access to higher education opportunities for disadvantaged members of our communities. Unlike selective admission four-year colleges and universities, New Jersey’s 19 community colleges, by law, have open access missions. This means we admit anyone who is at least 18 years of age, has a high school diploma or its equivalent, and can benefit from instruction at our institutions.
Among New Jersey’s 19 community colleges, it is important to note that approximately 16 percent of incoming, full-time freshman are prepared for college-level learning. At the end of the three-year period for which completion rates are reported, 53 percent of those students met their goal of either graduating and or transferring to a senior college. For incoming students who are not college ready, but met the criteria for admission, the completion rate was 24 percent. Thus, the often cited two- and three-year graduation rates that are frequently published to gauge community college success, which do not include looking at our two distinct populations separately and ignores successful transfers, underestimates the actual success of our students.
Clearly incoming students who are college-ready have demonstrated a high level of success. Moreover, a significant number of our incoming full-time students who were not college ready have been provided a pathway to earning a degree or making a successful transfer. Nevertheless, we recognize an achievement gap between these two populations and this is one of the main reasons why Atlantic Cape and Cumberland have joined with all community colleges in New Jersey – and throughout the country – to develop strategies that maximize student success. Furthermore, to better measure the success of our unique student populations, the state community college sector, working in collaboration with the New Jersey Council of County Colleges, has adopted a statewide Student Success Data model. The model tracks a series of success metrics over a six-year period, and is aligned with the national Voluntary Framework of Accountability developed by the American Association of Community Colleges.
While these metrics are a better representation of our open-door mission, we certainly are committed to helping even more students succeed at our colleges. In addition to our state-wide collaborations, Atlantic Cape and Cumberland have joined the Achieving the Dream network, the national leader in improving community college student success, with a particular focus on improving developmental programs and providing more support for low-income and minority students. As a result, we have grown or put in place a number of new, innovative programs to help our students succeed.
One program at Atlantic Cape is the Accelerated Learning Program, which allows students who just miss testing into college-level readiness in English to take developmental courses at the same time they are enrolled in college-level English Composition. At Cumberland, we have streamlined our math developmental education programs so that students can more quickly make it to college-level math courses. In addition, our community colleges are partnering with local high schools to assess students’ college readiness and offer developmental instruction before students arrive at our colleges. So far, the results of these strategies are showing great promise in student retention, student motivation and student completion. In short, our colleges are doing all they can to ensure that our diverse student populations have access to resources designed to help them succeed.
Atlantic Cape Community College and Cumberland County College remain places where residents can obtain a high quality, accredited education, while attending full- or part-time, find academic support, and earn a meaningful, transferable credential, at a cost that is approximately one-third the cost of a four-year college or university. This is and will continue to be our open door mission as we work hard to create more and more opportunities for students and families throughout our respective communities.
Dr. Peter Mora is President of Atlantic Cape Community College, with campuses in Mays Landing, Atlantic City and Cape May Court House. Dr. Thomas Isekenegbe is President of Cumberland County College in Vineland. Dr. Lawrence Nespoli is President of the New Jersey Council of County Colleges, the state association for New Jersey’s 19 community colleges.