MORE GUIDANCE, BETTER RESULTS?

The program at Lorain operated between 2003 and 2006, and the program at Owens operatedbetween 2004 and 2006. This report updates and supplements the early findings that werepresented in two separate reports in 2007, one focusing on Lorain, the other on Owens. The 2007reports presented similar findings: while it was too soon to draw final conclusions, resultsindicated that the program improved some short-term academic outcomes for students, but didnot yet appear to have had a significant lasting effect. 4 This report synthesizes the previousfindings, pools results across the two colleges, and extends analyses up to three years afterstudents were randomly assigned in order to better assess the long-term effects of the program.The enhanced student services program offered at Lorain and Owens represents onetype of program being evaluated as part of a larger multisite study known as the Opening Doorsdemonstration. This chapter begins with an overview of the full Opening Doors demonstration,which took place at six community colleges in the United States and evaluated several innovativestrategies for improving students’ academic progress. Next, the chapter defines studentsupport services, explains how they might lead to student success, and provides some informationabout the types of students attending community college and why they, in particular, maybenefit from such services. That section is followed by a description of the current state ofstudent services and some research evidence that suggests that enhancing these services is5associated with higher student success rates. The chapter concludes with a description of thecontents of the rest of this report. 6Overview of the Opening Doors Demonstration and EvaluationWith support from a consortium of funders, MDRC launched the Opening Doors demonstrationin 2003. As part of the demonstration, six community colleges in four states eachoperated an innovative program that was designed to increase students’ achievement and persistencein school. The programs included two or three of the following strategies: curricular andinstructional innovations, enhanced student services, and supplementary financial aid. See Table1.1 for a brief description of the programs studied as part of the Opening Doors demonstration. 7To measure the effects of each of the programs, the evaluation used a random assignmentresearch design, a first in large-scale community college research. At each college, studyparticipants were assigned, at random, either to a program group that received the Opening4 Scrivener and Au (2007); Scrivener and Pih (2007).5 See, for example, Mathur (2004); Steingass and Sykes (2008).6 Some sections of this report were adapted from prior MDRC reports about the Opening Doors demonstration.7 For results of the other programs, see Scrivener et al. (2008); Richburg-Hayes et al. (2009); and Scrivener,Sommo, and Collado (2009).2