Structural Equity: Big-Picture Thinking & Partnerships That Improve Community College Student Outcomes

Abstract

While access to higher education has grown considerably for low-income students and students of color over the past decades, the rates at which those students succeed in completing or transferring to a four-year university remain low and have been slow to improve. This report describes how four successful community colleges have cultivated robust, cross-sector partnerships to create seamless educational pathways for students, and highlights three specific strategies the institutions have used to help eliminate structural barriers that perpetuate student success gaps along racial/ethnic and socioeconomic lines. Development of this guide was supported by the Lumina Foundation