A recent report from the Center for Community College Student Engagement (CCCSE) at the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin) prioritizes the student experience, highlighting what students have to say about what helps or hinders them while enrolled in community college.
Dr. Linda García
The report, “Listen to Me: Community College Students Tell Us What Helps Them Persist,” gives readers a glimpse into the student experiences of community college students, from orientation to academic advising to ongoing needs, and provides some recommended actions schools can take to improve.
“While almost all the interviewed students returned for their second semester, their stories make it clear that for many of them, staying enrolled in college is akin to walking a tightrope on a daily basis,” the report’s authors wrote. “Their voices need to be heard so that we can understand what will make their journeys less fraught—and what we can do to widen the safety net to catch them if they start to fall.”
The report’s findings were structured along a student success strategy that CCCSE Executive Director Dr. Linda García called the “guided pathways framework.”
“[The guided pathways framework] is all about making sure students have a plan and they are connected with support services on their journey, but also connecting them to a livable wage job at the very end so that things are crystal clear for them and that they're not wondering what courses [they] need to take,” said García. “It's all about intentionality, making sure the path is clear and it's transparent and there are supports along the way.”
The CCCSE – founded in 2001 by the UT-Austin’s College of Education – conducted focus groups and interviews with the same group of first-time college students at three points during the fall 2021 semester and once in the spring 2022 semester at three community colleges in Texas.
The goal was to understand the educational journeys that students take and listen to them about what helps them progress before they think about dropping out, García added.
