What Excellent Community Colleges Do: Preparing All Students for Success by Joshua S. Wyner (review)

Joshua S. Wyner’s 2014 book What Excellent Community Colleges Do: Preparing All Students for Success is particularly timely as community colleges are being recognized for their important contributions in higher education. Author Joshua S. Wyner, founder and director of the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program, leads Aspen’s efforts to identify outstanding community college practices in the areas of degree completion, equity, student learning, and labor market success. Wyner draws from his understanding of exceptional community colleges and identifies the policies and practices that lead to student success.

The book begins with a foreword by Dr. Anthony P. Carnevale, an economist, research professor, and director of The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Carnevale, former Chairman of the National Committee of Employment Policy for Clinton, is an advocate for STEM education and applied and practical learning. Carnevale emphasizes the unique opportunity community colleges have in partnering with high schools and four-year universities to quickly and affordably produce a skilled workforce and equalize economic and social disparities for those most marginalized.

Wyner introduces the book by explaining that more than any other player in higher education, community colleges have the ability to produce significant numbers of work-ready individuals, capable of meeting the economic demands of our current global marketplace and by doing so provide traditionally marginalized individuals an opportunity for social mobility and economic independence. While access to community colleges has increased, the author explains that graduation rates have not, and with the shift to funding based on completion, community colleges must focus on improvement; “we owe it to every incoming generation of community college students to understand and replicate whatever it is that has allowed exceptional colleges to achieve great outcomes for students” (p.10).

Wyner identifies four domains as significant in student success: completing programs that lead to a living wage or transfer to a four year institution; providing equitable opportunities for traditionally underserved individuals; exceptional learning outcomes that collect meaningful data and utilize the data to improve pedagogy; and labor market results that set students up to be economically independent and mobile in the market place. The ensuing five chapters address these domains by describing the policies implemented in community colleges that have caught the eye and admiration of the Aspen Institute.

In Chapter 1, Wyner addresses completion and transfer. He offers the critique that the K-12 system provides structure and support that community colleges fail to replicate, resulting in confusing processes and low completion rates for students; “a community college student who is attending college for the first time and carries a full load has at best a one-in-four chance of graduating within three years” (p.13). He identifies two goals for community colleges: creating transparent pathways to community college credentials and transfers, and ensuring that students make the correct decisions along their educational trajectory. Wyner addresses the importance of well-articulated pathways, early and often advising, developing individual completion plans, and regular monitoring. He describes effective practices utilized by Aspen prizewinners such as streamlining registration, no late add policies, and user-friendly software that allows students to map careers to coursework. Regarding transfer practices, Wyner provides specific suggestions to community colleges including: offering a rigorous curriculum that prepares students for success in a four year institution, guaranteed admission at four-year partner institutions upon successful completion at the community college, and intentional and informed advising that supports transfer.

Equity and developmental education are the focus of Chapter 2. Wyner begins by acknowledging that lack of gatekeeping, characteristic of community colleges, offers opportunity and access and yet is the very factor that places students at risk for failure; “given the large number of underprepared students and today’s constrained government resources, though, maintaining this broad access and diversity can be hard for schools” (p. 42). Underprepared students have lower success rates than their peers that...