Abstract
Introduction
After graduating from high school, Deidra decides to enroll at her local community college to save money while she completes her general education coursework. Her goal is to study biology, earn her Associate of Science degree in 2 years, and then transfer to a 4-year university to earn her bachelor’s degree. Deidra enrolled part-time (three courses) in her first semester to save money on tuition and textbooks. However, during a meeting with her academic advisor, Deidra learns she cannot earn her associate degree within 2 years unless she registers for a heavier course load each semester. Deidra has an important decision to make.
On the one hand, she prioritizes completing her associate degree and transferring in a timely manner. However, Deidra must work part-time to have enough money for college and her monthly living expenses. She wonders if she can even afford to take additional courses each semester and successfully balance additional schoolwork alongside her job demands. She wants to finish her degree as quickly as possible, but as Deidra considers enrolling full-time next semester, she asks herself, “Am I trying to do too much, too quickly? Can I handle it?”
Deidra’s predicament is one routinely faced by thousands of community college students across the country. The implications of this particular decision—whether to enroll part- or full-time each semester—are far-reaching and significant. An extensive body of empirical research has found full-time attendance is associated with better academic and enrollment outcomes for community college students (e.g., Attewell & Monaghan, 2016; Doyle, 2009, 2011; Jenkins & Bailey, 2017; McKinney & Hagedorn, 2017; Park, 2015;). Even one semester of full-time community college enrollment can increase student engagement and performance. Research by the Center for Community College Student Engagement (2017) found students enrolled full-time for at least one semester were more likely to complete gateway courses, persist to their second year, and complete a certificate or degree. In Tennessee, 2- and 4-year college students who enrolled in 15 credit hours during their first semester were more likely to achieve key success measures than their peers who attempted 12 credit hours (Belfield et al., 2016; Denley, 2016).
Incentivizing full-time enrollment is a key component of current initiatives aimed at improving community college completion rates. Most “free” tuition and Promise Programs across the country require that students enroll full-time to qualify for program benefits (Andrews, 2014; Kelchen, 2017). Similarly, 15 to Finish programs popularized by Complete College America encourage students to complete a total of 30 credits per academic year (Fall, Spring, Summer) or 15 credits each Fall and Spring semester (Jones, 2015). An estimated 455 higher education institutions are currently implementing 15 to Finish programs (Complete College America [CCA], 2019), using financial incentives, social marketing, and/or structural reforms to increase full-time enrollment rates (Klempin, 2014). Research has found these programs can generate increases in credits attempted and total credit accumulation (Attewell & Monaghan, 2016; Belfield et al., 2016; Klempin, 2014; Miller et al., 2011; Monaghan et al., 2018; Scott-Clayton, 2011a).
Most research on 15 to Finish programs has focused on outcomes related to students’ academic momentum. Limited attention, however, has been given to identifying the specific factors that lead a student to switch from part- to full-time enrollment. Understanding this decision-making process is critical in determining how and why these types of programs work, for whom, and under what conditions. There are important equity implications of this decision, as there is concern that full-time enrollment may not be best for all community college students, such as those who work full-time, have family obligations, or need significant academic remediation (Attewell & Monaghan, 2016; Civitas Learning, 2017). Our work advances research on this topic by more carefully examining the central decision-making process on which the overall success of these programs depends.
The purpose of our study was to identify key factors that influence students’ decisions about whether to register for additional courses each semester. The context for our study was Urban Community College (UCC, a pseudonym) in Texas, one of the largest and most racially/ethnically diverse community college systems in the nation. Drawing from extensive interview and focus-group data from both students and academic advisors, our study highlights the issues that community colleges should consider as part of programmatic efforts to increase full-time enrollment rates. Two research questions guided our study:
According to community college students, what factors are most critical in determining their decision about whether to enroll full-time?
According to academic advisors, what factors are most important to consider when advising a student whether to enroll full-time?
Literature Review
Our review focuses on two areas of scholarship. First, we summarize key findings from research on academic momentum and the results of interventions designed to increase full-time enrollment rates. This literature establishes the importance of decisions made during students’ first year of enrollment. Second, we review the limited number of studies examining students’ course selection related to the role that academic advisors play in shaping students’ decision-making processes. That scholarship identifies the types of information students and advisors might expect to discuss, then utilize, during the advisement and registration process. The closing section describes the contributions of our study to advancing research on community college student success.
Academic Momentum and Credit Accumulation
Students’ experiences during their first semester and academic year are highly influential in their success and decisions to persist in community college (Goldrick-Rab, 2010; Jenkins & Bailey, 2017; Mechur Karp, 2016; Tovar, 2015; Wang, 2017). Academic momentum refers to student choices and behaviors that govern the rate at which they accumulate credits and meet critical milestones toward degree attainment. Course load and course-taking patterns during students’ first semesters establish momentum, which then affects students’ likelihood for degree completion (Adelman, 1999, 2004, 2006) and transfer (Doyle, 2011). Early academic momentum can help community college students overcome educational or socio-demographic disadvantages (Belfield et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2015). Additionally, there may be components of academic momentum specific to a particular field of study. Wang (2015) found that, for students pursuing baccalaureate degrees in STEM, momentum specific to STEM coursework gained early in students’ college career increased their chance of achieving that degree. This underscores the importance of community colleges carefully guiding students’ academic behaviors and choices early in their college careers.
Credit accumulation, completion of gateway courses, and completion of courses in the student’s program/major are three components of academic momentum that are established in students’ first semesters. Although entering students may assume carrying a lighter course load facilitates student success, heavier academic loads are related to higher GPA and greater retention, completion, and transfer (Adelman, 2006; Attewell & Monaghan, 2016; Attewell et al., 2012; Bahr, 2009; Belfield et al., 2016; Crosta, 2014; Doyle, 2009, 2011; Scott-Clayton, 2011a; Szafran, 2001). Higher credit loads have been found to benefit first generation and minority students at least as much as white students from more educated families (Attewell & Monaghan, 2016; Belfield et al., 2016). As students who are economically disadvantaged and/or less well academically prepared are more likely to take fewer credits, and as the credit accumulation gap tends to grow as students’ progress (Attewell & Monaghan, 2016; Belfield et al., 2016), encouraging additional credit hours early in students’ academic careers is one promising route to reduce equity gaps in educational outcomes.
Full-time enrollment, however, may not benefit all students. Although the link between enrollment intensity and educational outcomes is strong and positive, there is evidence these outcomes vary when students have substantial commitments in addition to their education. Attewell and Monaghan (2016) used propensity score matching to compare socially similar community college students who took 12 versus 15 hours, finding that students who work more than 30 hours per week did not benefit from an increased credit load. Wladis et al. (2018) found that students with preschool-age children had significantly lower quantity and quality of time for academics, which negatively affected both persistence and credit accumulation. Findings from a study examining 1,400 survey responses from students at two urban community college systems in Texas indicated working students experiencing financial stress were more likely to stop out for a semester (Mukherjee et al., 2017). Analysis of Georgia’s HOPE scholarship suggests that 70% of a cohort HOPE scholarship recipients lost their eligibility after attempting 30 quarter hours, and that HOPE students may have reduced credit-load enrollments to maintain academic eligibility (Condon et al., 2011; Cornwell et al., 2005).
Community college students are more likely to be disproportionally African American and Latinx, are more likely to be first generation college students, from non-traditional age groups, and/or from a lower-income household (Monaghan et al., 2018). Accordingly, they are more likely to hold off-campus employment and to have caregiving responsibilities (Gault et al., 2016), adding layers of complexity to their enrollment choices. Not surprisingly, enrollment patterns are inconsistent for community college students, and even those who begin full-time often do not enroll full-time throughout their career (Bahr, 2011; Crosta, 2014). However, even one semester of full-time enrollment is associated with higher engagement, completion of gateway courses, persistence, and credential attainment (Center for Community College Student Engagement, 2017). Moreover, although much of the research focuses on full-time enrollment or the transition from 12 to 15 credit hours, data from Civitas Learning (2017) suggests that taking one additional course may increase persistence and that this increase is greatest for students who increase enrollment to two courses for the semester compared to those taking only one course in a semester. This may suggest “one-more-course” policies may be more effective for community college students than policies focused on full-time enrollment.
Navigating the Community College Experience
When a student enrolls at a community college, they encounter an array of enrollment decisions pertaining to their program of study, course selection, and enrollment intensity. These choices are complicated and lead to mistakes, including enrollment in courses that do not count toward their program, do not transfer, or result in excess credits at graduation (Bailey et al., 2015; Jaggars & Karp, 2016; Scott-Clayton, 2011b). Work based in psychology and behavioral economics finds that community college students often make sub-optimal decisions in situations that involve many complex choices and/or where there is a lack of information (Page & Scott-Clayton, 2016; Scott-Clayton, 2011b). In these situations, students are likely unduly influenced by idiosyncratic factors and may avoid ever deciding, which can result in failure to enroll in classes or declare a major. There are equity implications associated with the lack of structure or guidance provided at some community colleges, as many students of color and first-generation students rely heavily on institutional support services to successfully navigate college (Bivens & Wood, 2016; Harris & Wood, 2013; Santiago, 2016).
The guided pathways approach presents students with highly structured degree maps that align with their career objectives (Bailey et al., 2015; Jenkins & Cho, 2012; Scrivener et al., 2015) and support student completion by simplifying student choices. However, even with structured degree maps, many community college students may not have the social capital or networks to help guide them or to promote integration into college life (Goldrick-Rab, 2010; Karp, 2011). Promisingly, support services which help students clarify their career aspirations, enhance commitment to their studies, and engage in goal-setting and long-term planning have been found to improve student decision-making and outcomes (Bahr, 2008; Donaldson et al., 2016; Mechur Karp, 2016; Tovar, 2015).
An important set of decisions that students make upon college entry include course enrollment and course load. Prior work examining factors that influence students’ course selection has examined student behavior but not the interplay between students and advisor. The student-focused course selection research highlights the importance of student career goals, expected quality of learning, instructor quality, instructor ratings, and prior grades to the student decision-making processes (Babad, 2001; Babad & Tayeb, 2003; Coleman & McKeachie, 1981; O’Neill & Sai, 2014). In choosing courses, students prefer information they deemed reliable but did not utilize several sources of relevant information, including time-to-degree and academic preparedness (Hayes & Prus, 2014; O’Neill & Sai, 2014). Finally, Zocco (2009) argues that students evaluate risk when selecting their coursework. Students hope for positive outcomes but consider subject-matter, professor, course environment, and grade-related risks when considering course selection. For undergraduates, grade-related risks were found to be most salient.
Students are also likely to integrate knowledge about the structural characteristics of a course when considering their credit load. For example, research examining selection of online versus face-to-face coursework highlights students’ attention to expected learning and success outcomes (Bailey et al., 2018; Jaggars, 2014). Common reasons for selecting face-to-face over online courses include students’ beliefs that they will learn more in face-to-face courses, that face-face face formats increase their engagement with the material, and a preference for face-to-face formats for difficult or “important” coursework (Jaggars, 2014; O’Neill & Sai, 2014). However, also factoring into students’ decisions about course modality is convenience and balancing competing responsibilities of work, family, and school (Aslanian & Clinefelter, 2013; Brinkerhoff & Koroghlanian, 2007; Fox, 2017).
Academic advisors are potentially reliable sources of information about courses, course load, and navigating the community college experience. However, Clark (1960) proposed that academic advisors played a central role in “cooling out” community students whose academic aspirations surpass their academic aptitudes. Clark (1960) asserted that it is a duty of academic advisors at community colleges to guide overly ambitious students toward alternate areas of study and career aspirations. While researchers have examined various forms of “cooling out” that may occur within these institutions (Conway, 2010; Grubbs, 2020), studies focusing specifically on academic advising have generally found advisors are beneficial to community college students’ academic engagement and success (Bahr, 2008; Center for Community College Student Engagement, 2018; Seidman, 1991).
Strayhorn (2015) states that academic advising is the primary point in which students access information, tools, and resources to navigate successfully through college; moreover, advisors serve as cultural navigators who can help students understand the assets they bring to campus and identify ways for students to leverage these strengths in new settings. While many community college students report positive interactions with advisors, research also suggests some students have negative or frustrating experiences with advisors and other institutional agents (Donaldson et al., 2016; McKinney & Roberts, 2012; O’Banion, 2020). Maximizing students’ positive advising experiences is critical, because overall, academic advising has been found to affect student satisfaction and to have both direct and indirect effects on student retention, completion, and transfer (Bahr, 2008; Metzner, 1989; Scrivener & Au, 2007; Scrivener & Weiss, 2009; Vianden & Barlow, 2015).
Smith and Allen (2006, 2014) argue that quality academic advising encompasses five domains: (1) provision of accurate information about degree requirements and timelines, policies, and procedures; (2) referral to campus resources for academic and nonacademic matters; (3) integration of students’ academic, career, and life goals with each other and the curriculum; (4) consideration of students’ individual characteristics; and (5) scaffolding students’ problem-solving, planning, and decision-making skills. Students who met with an academic advisor were more likely to have achieved both cognitive learning outcomes in these domains as well as affective outcomes, demonstrating knowledge and attitudes predictive of success (Mu & Fosnacht, 2019; Smith & Allen, 2014). Advisors can take a prescriptive approach, which is informational and directive, or a developmental approach, aimed at developing the students’ independence and decision-making skills (Alexitch, 2002; Fielstein, 1994). Students may benefit from different kinds of advising at different times, and in the first semester, information-centered activities may be beneficial (Hatch & Garcia, 2017).
Contributions of Our Study
In sum, an extensive body of research links community college students’ academic momentum with their enrollment outcomes. Early credit accumulation, and full-time enrollment specifically, are related to persistence, degree completion, and transfer (Belfield et al., 2016; Crosta, 2014; Doyle, 2009, 2011; Scott-Clayton, 2011a; Szafran, 2001). Course selection and course load in the first semesters predict later outcomes, yet little work has focused on how institutions can support students in making these decisions. The course selection literature has primarily examined course-related factors; students’ contextual factors has appeared primarily in literature examining selection of course modality. Limited research has explored decision-making processes students utilize in choosing their course load or how colleges’ support services influence student decision-making. Our study explicitly examines these issues by investigating how students and advisors integrate and prioritize these factors in decisions about course load, with the intent of clarifying how colleges can leverage support services and policy to improve student outcomes.
Theoretical Framework
Rational choice theory (RCT) guided our understanding of the decision-making process community college students engage in when determining their course load each semester. RCT posits that as part of the decision-making process, individuals weigh the likely costs, and benefits of their actions, then make choices they believe will maximize utility and satisfaction from their choices (Hechter & Kanazawa, 1997; Heckathorn, 1997; Scott, 2000). The theory has been extensively applied to understand college students’ choices and behaviors (DesJardins & Toutkoushian, 2005; Iloh & Tierney, 2014; McKinney et al., 2015; Perna, 2008). Within the context of our study, we hypothesize that, for most community college students, course load decisions achieve maximum utility when the student can successfully complete as many courses as possible in a given semester. Conversely, a suboptimal decision includes one in which a student unsuccessfully completes one or more courses attempted. Earning fewer credit hours than the student could successfully manage (e.g., passing two courses when passing four was possible) also fails to maximize utility from their enrollment decision.
Particularly salient for our study is RCT’s attention to constraints that individuals face as part of the decision-making process. While the benefits of attempting additional courses each semester (e.g., accelerated progress toward degree completion) may be apparent, the reality is that financial, familial, and other external pull factors serve as constraints to full-time enrollment for many community college students. Finances, including the need to hold employment while pursuing college, are a constraint that directly shapes the enrollment choices of students in this sector (Michalski, 2014; Mukherjee et al., 2017). Approximately 78% of part-time and 43% of full-time community college students hold employment while taking classes (The National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2018). In addition, 28% of community college students view themselves as “an employee who studies,” rather than a “student who works” (Velez et al., 2018). Consequently, in weighing the costs and benefits of enrolling full-time, many students give primary consideration to their job, not college.
Taking more courses each semester increases transportation costs, as additional trips to and from campus each week require more money for gas or public transit. Community college students, relative to their 4-year peers, are also much more likely to have financial and time constraints related to childrearing and/or caretaking of a family member (Bailey et al., 2015). Moreover, each student’s prior academic performance and goals influence the decision-making process to increase course load. A student who has struggled academically during high school or in early college coursework may be understandably hesitant to increase their credit load from two to five classes each semester. When taking a subject they found challenging in the past (e.g., math), a student may register for fewer total credit hours to devote more attention to the difficult course. The ability to maintain a GPA that satisfies degree and/or transfer requirements is also a consideration, as the costs of attending full-time outweigh the benefits if the choice results in a low GPA that prevents the student from achieving their educational goals.
The complexity of the decision-making process about full-time enrollment is exacerbated by the multitude of academic and non-academic constraints community college students often face simultaneously. Ideally, each student has all the pertinent information needed when conducting the cost-benefit analysis, thus resulting in an optimal decision about their semester credit load. An important premise of RCT, however, is that individuals do not have complete information when making choices (DesJardins & Toutkoushian, 2005). We hypothesize many students base their credit load decisions on incomplete, and sometimes inaccurate, information. The academic, job, and family demands collectively faced by community college students can result in time constraints that hinder the procurement of information and guidance needed to make the best decision about their course schedule. In their review of RCT, Hechter and Kanazawa (1997) assert that, “people often act impulsively, emotionally, or merely by force of habit” (p. 192). A student may continue to enroll in two courses each semester simply because that is what they have done in the past. Research has found community college students often make choices based on the utility of the moment without considering the longer-term implications of their decisions (McKinney et al., 2015; Reyna & Farley, 2006).
RCT places the individual at the center of the decision-making process, but an important, and sometimes overlooked, tenet of the theory is that broader social structures and norms provide the critical context where decisions occur (Hechter & Kanazawa, 1997). This is directly applicable in our study, as community colleges’ support structures (or lack thereof) directly and significantly influence students’ enrollment behaviors. The quality of academic and financial aid advising, as well as course registration procedures, set the structures and norms under which students assess the cost-benefits of increasing their credit load. Many colleges, including UCC, have enhanced support structures (e.g., new student orientations, proactive advising, texting interventions) to help students more accurately assess the cost and benefits of their enrollment choices. Notably, academic advisors provide key information about institutional norms/policies (e.g., degree plan requirements, duration of add/drop period, tuition refund policy) that enter students’ cost-benefit calculations. The benefits of full-time enrollment (e.g., financial efficiency, increased probability of completion) may not be obvious to students but could be introduced by the advisor. Consequently, we hypothesize that interactions with advisors are highly influential in students’ decision-making about full-time enrollment.
The decision about whether to pursue community college on a part- or full-time basis, which on the surface may appear simple and straightforward, involves layers of complexity. Moreover, the key factors shaping students’ cost-benefit analysis are temporal, as students’ lives can change from one semester to the next. In 15 to Finish programs, incentives like banded tuition (paying an equivalent amount for four or five courses), textbook scholarships, micro-grants, and digital badges celebrating academic progress are all designed to influence a student’s enrollment preferences and motivations. We believe these direct incentives, as well as targeted promotional campaigns touting the benefits of full-time enrollment, can and do influence students’ decisions. However, we hypothesize there are some student groups at the community college for whom the costs of full-time enrollment outweigh the benefits. Our study draws on data from students and academic advisors to examine how different types of students engage with a critical decision-making process that significantly influences their likelihood of completing a degree.
Methods
Institutional Context and Sample
UCC enrolls more than 80,000 credit students annually across multiple campuses situated within a metropolitan area in Texas. To better contextualize our findings, it is important to provide a profile of the overall UCC student population. In 2018 to 2019 the UCC student body was: 67% racial/ethnic minority, 39% above age 25, and 36% of entering students were referred to developmental education. Approximately 37% of students received some form of financial aid (need-based grant, loan, work-study), with 31% receiving a Pell grant. In terms of off-campus responsibilities, the most recent findings from UCC’s administration of the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) indicated 77% of students reported being employed at least part-time and 22% held child-rearing responsibilities.
During the 2018 to 2019 academic year, approximately 30% of UCC students enrolled on an exclusively full-time basis in the Fall semester. Notably, for UCC and most other Texas community colleges, 12 credit hours per semester has traditionally been considered full-time enrollment. Our study examined a new institutional strategy first introduced in Fall 2018 where UCC began implementing a 15 to Finish initiative that encouraged students to enroll in 15 credits per semester (or enrollment year-round by taking 12 credits in the fall and spring and 6 credits in the summer). The first phase of implementation, which was the focus of this study, involved the use of targeted promotional materials embedded into new student orientations. These materials included videos and brochures that explained the benefits of full-time enrollment, including cost savings and accelerated progress toward degree completion to entering students. In addition, several UCC campuses provided professional development to academic advisors and faculty about credit accumulation and completion. These conditions provided an ideal context in which to examine the implications of institutional efforts to incentivize full-time enrollment among community college students.
Data Collection and Analysis
A total of 24 students who reflected the broader demographic student profile at UCC were interviewed: 16 students in one-on-one interviews for approximately 45 minutes each and 8 in a focus group interview for an hour. Eight advisors were interviewed in two focus groups, approximately for an hour each. These advisors reflected the broader profile of academic advisors across the UCC system, which had the following demographic characteristics in Fall 2019: 69% female; 47% African American, 25% Latinx, 17% white, 11% Asian American or Pacific Islander; and an average of 45 years of age (range 22–77). Interview and focus group protocols were co-developed between team members at the community college and university involved in this research-practice partnership. All interviews and focus groups were conducted by members of the university research team who were not affiliated with UCC.
Sample selection
Entering students were recruited approximately 2 months after the start of the Fall 2018 or Spring 2019 semester. The criteria for inclusion in interviews were as follows: (1) Students were new-to-UCC students; (2) Orientation records indicated that students had watched the 15 to Finish video; (3) Students were considered to be enrolled full-time, carrying at least 12 semester credit hours; (4) Students were at least 18 years of age. From this set of students, 400 were randomly selected. Those students were then contacted by email and invited to participate. Students indicated their interest by filling out a short survey containing a consent form and their availability. Researchers contacted interested students and invited them to interview. Students were then interviewed by phone following a protocol co-developed by research team members from the community college and university. The interview protocol was constructed around the following topic domains: (1) student’s individual goals, contexts, values, conditions, (2) student’s awareness of (and opinions about) 15 to Finish, (3) student’s reasons behind their choices about increasing the course credit load, and (4) student’s perception and understanding about the role advising. These topic domains produced a list of questions that included questions such as, “When deciding on how many credit hours to register for each semester, what are the key factors that you considered?” and, “What do you see as potential challenges or difficulties you may experience when you take more credit hours this semester?” A gift card was offered as an incentive for participation.
Student focus group participants were recruited in the Spring 2019 semester from a required first year experience course typically taken in students’ first semester. This course was chosen to maximize the likelihood that students participating in the focus group were new students, similar to students who were individually interviewed. Instructors of two sections ending shortly before the lunch hour read a recruitment announcement to their students. Students were at least 18 years old but could be enrolled either full-time or part-time in Spring 2019. Students were incentivized with lunch and a gift card. Advisors were recruited for focus groups from two of the UCC campuses, purposefully selected to obtain a broader perspective of advisor perceptions than recruitment from a single campus would reveal. The advisors who participated comprised four men and four women and their experiences as advisors at UCC ranged from several years to 19 years at the time of the interview, which were representative of the UCC advisor population. Advisors were offered a gift card as an incentive.
Analysis
The collection and analysis of the data employed the critical qualitative inquiry method (Carspecken, 1996; Dennis et al., 2013). All interviews and focus groups were audio-recorded and transcribed. The sanitized transcription data were shared with the entire research team for review. The researcher who conducted the interviews led the coding and analysis process. First, she reviewed all transcriptions along with her notes and produced a list of raw codes for each interview manually. Then she performed the low- and high-level coding processes using reconstructive analysis (Carspecken, 1996). The coding process began with low-level coding that requires little abstraction and moved to high-level codes with a greater amount of abstraction that also utilize contextual information and local knowledge about UCC. Simultaneously with this manual coding process, another researcher analyzed the data separately using NVivo to produce codes and generate themes. The codes and categories produced from the preliminary coding process were collaboratively reviewed and interpreted by the UCC members of the research team, increasing trustworthiness of interpretation. Resulting themes were also peer-debriefed by the whole team including a larger number of researchers and administrators of UCC on this project. The quotations or descriptions used in the findings section are representative examples from the larger data set.
Limitations
The most significant limitation was that all students in individual interviews were full-time students; therefore, perspectives of part-time students were incorporated only in the student and advisor focus groups. Thus, although this sample gives valuable insight into student decision-making process, it over-represents full-time students. Additionally, advisors in the focus groups were not necessarily the advisors of the students sampled, so students’ experiences could not be directly connected with advisor actions. Observations of student-advisor interactions, or interviews with students and advisors shortly after advising and registration sessions would yield more direct information about conversations between students and advisors. Interviews occurred mid-semester, so were removed in time from the decision-making process, which may have limited some students’ and advisors’ ability to speak directly to the decision-making process.
Findings
The data showed students considered several factors when deciding the number of courses to enroll in; the factors can be grouped into three major areas: (1) academic performance, (2) financial considerations and other costs, and (3) advising experiences. Data from academic advisors showed that they agreed with the importance of full-time enrollment for students’ success. The advisors also recognized that 15 hours are not for everyone. Advisors shared suggestions for promoting 15 hours to students such as a technology-integrated self-monitoring system or campus-wide activities. Findings from the students’ data are presented first below, followed by the reports from UCC advisors’ data.
Student Perspectives
Academic performance
Academic performance issues come down to the question of “Can I handle the workload and still get a good GPA?” Students in this study first consider their academic situation when deciding how many hours in which to enroll and gauge the additional challenges any hours enrolled in beyond 12 would present. The students were keenly aware of the importance of course grades and used past academic performance in making credit load decisions. They adjusted their credit load for upcoming semesters based on their grades in the previous semester.
Students’ primary academic concern was achieving, or maintaining, a GPA which will satisfy degree, program, or transfer requirements. Students explained they enroll in as many credits as they “feel they can handle” based on their GPA comparative to their course loads in previous semesters. Students stress the perceived difficulty of courses is a significant academic consideration when deciding on the amount of credit hours in which to enroll. As expressed in the quotes below by a student pursuing her Associate in Science, participants stated they were unlikely to increase enrollment from 12 to 15 hours if taking courses generally viewed as very difficult (e.g., organic chemistry) or if they are subjects with which students have personally struggled (e.g., math).
So, if I’m doing Organic Chemistry, I don’t want to do Organic Chemistry, Calculus II, Advanced Molecular Biology, and like all this crazy stuff in one semester, because I might rip my hair out and cry every night! So, I also think about how intellectually demanding each of the subjects are. So when I choose what courses I’m going to do per semester, if I only have really hard courses left, then the chances are I’m not going to take as many.
The participants were mostly aware that they will achieve their academic goals in less time if they increase credit-hour enrollment from 12 to 15 hours or take courses during summer sessions. Participants, therefore, strived to strike a balance between enrolling in the number of credit hours per semester that provides good chances to achieve success while also ensuring they can meet their educational goals on time. The data suggest students perceive online and weekend courses as providing a flexible schedule, which may allow them to increase credit-hour enrollment. Students believed the flexibility of online and weekend courses ameliorates the increased academic difficulty associated with a heavier course load; however, students cautioned that online courses can be as academically rigorous as in-person courses indicating their own awareness about the misconception of “easiness” associated with online courses.
The notion of “flexibility” seemed important to participants. Flexibility was mentioned both in terms of course formats (e.g., online) and course meeting times (e.g., the Weekend College, summer courses). Taking a course with a professor or instructor who has the reputation of being receptive to students and understanding their struggles may also influence whether a student chooses to increase credit-hour enrollment. Participants also used the term “flexible” to describe instructors who are understanding of challenges that diverse, non-traditional UCC students often face. In making decisions about which courses to take, students also used online reviews of instructors on websites like RateMyProfessor.com. Students were willing to wait for another “better” instructor, postponing that particular course registration to a later semester for the possibility of a better performance in that course.
Financial considerations and other costs
Next to academic factors, financial considerations were important in selecting how many credit hours in which to enroll. The financial issues come down to the question of “Can I afford the number of courses?” Students’ primary concern was tuition, especially if they were paying out-of-pocket. Interviewees also mentioned the potential impact of unforeseen expenses, as one student pursuing a cosmetology credential explained:
And if the student is paying out-of-pocket, to make a realistic payment plan that is able to meet the student’s needs, because, you know, things happen when we’re in school! We may lose our job, or we may have to pay extra things, hospital fees, and school [. . .]. If they can’t pay that fee at the moment for their payment plan or whatever, then 9 times out of 10 they’ll probably get dropped from the course, which then they wind up having to take this class, and they couldn’t afford it, so now it’s like, “Do I go back to school and pay all this money that I owe, or do I just do like whatever?”
In such cases, students wanted to ensure taking only courses necessary for their specific degree goals (e.g., transfer to a four-year institution), fearing the accumulation of student loan debt. Advisors’ ability to counsel students about the requirements of transfer institutions was important to students’ conception of good and effective advising as will be presented later. The participants viewed banded tuition as a potential motivator for increasing credit-hour enrollment. Paying the same for 15 hours as 12 hours would influence them to take 15 hours even when considering the impact of increased academic difficulty or challenges mentioned above.
Participants who brought up the high textbook costs stressed it as a bigger obstacle in increasing credit load than tuition or fees. A science major stated:
I mean textbooks are the thing that people don’t think about as a cost! They always think about their tuition, the fees, and stuff, and then it comes as an afterthought, after you’re already in that class and you’re like “Oh crap, I have to buy a $200 textbook now!”. . .And then, some people are like “Maybe I should drop this course, because I can’t buy this textbook!” So yeah, it’s textbooks. I’ve always said they’re complete afterthoughts, because you were focusing on that tuition.
The following two explanations are possible. Unlike tuition, the exact cost of textbooks is typically unknown to the students at the time of enrollment. For this reason, high cost of textbooks, usually added up across several courses, was seen as a surprise or an “extra cost” students did not expect, especially with the high costs of texts from multiple courses. The students also seemed to consider that textbooks were determined by course instructors (i.e., textbook selection); therefore, the cost could be controlled. For this reason, the under-utilization of selected textbooks by instructors was frustrating for students. In this regard, students responded very positively to low or “zero-cost” textbooks (e.g., open source textbooks) that were available for some courses and promoted by UCC. Participants stated that efforts to help with textbook costs, such as open educational resources and financial assistance specific to textbooks, could motivate a higher credit-hour enrollment.
Other important “costs” that seemed to impact enrollment decisions relate to time and quality of life issues, namely transportation/commuting, employment, and family/work-life balance. UCC is located in a large metropolis that has heavy traffic. Driving distance to campus, parking conditions, and the number of days students are required to be on campus all seemed to count as the commute-time cost. Additionally, the financial cost impacting the commute (e.g., parking, gas) was a significant factor in students’ decision-making process. The data showed that students consider seriously their commute time from home or work to campus when deciding how many credit hours they can manage. Moreover, students may find themselves commuting to and between different UCC campuses as not all courses are offered at the same campus, as one participant pursuing an engineering degree mentioned below:
Like some of the classes are only available at some campuses. They aren’t available at all campuses, so I think that’s one of the issues. That’s something they need to address, because for some students it hard to get to those campuses because they are, for some people, far away.
Another participant echoed the same sentiment saying, “I tried to stay at [my home campus] because I really can’t afford to travel to all these other campuses.” Commuting between two or more campuses on the same day may influence a student to take fewer courses during the semester.
If a course was not offered at a campus convenient to the student’s commute, the student may wait to enroll in that course in a future semester. Participants’ mention of online courses, course scheduling (e.g., minimizing the number of necessary days to drive to campus), and the Weekend College Program offered by UCC all point to such considerations. The data showed that participants who either participated in or were aware of the Weekend College Program had very positive comments about the program.
Participants recognized that family obligations may prohibit students who are parents from increasing the number of credit hours in which they enroll. Childcare was a concern for parents attending college, which suggests that providing childcare may motivate parents to increase credit-hour enrollment. It is important to note, however, that all participants who identified as parents were enrolled in 12 or 15 credit hours at the time interviews occurred.
Advising experiences
In comparison to the academic and cost factors mentioned earlier, students’ experiences with academic advising provided a glimpse of the complexities of advising in community colleges. The students’ perception about the helpfulness of advisors seemed to vary more widely than the actual quality of advising that they experienced. Some students felt their advisors were very helpful; others felt that their advisors were unhelpful or even provided incorrect information. Yet others answered that they were self-guided/directed without advisors’ help, in which case they mentioned using UCC resources and checklists as a way of self-advising. For those who were critical of their assigned advisors, some mentioned seeking out and eventually receiving good “advising” from other members of the UCC personnel, such as course instructors or other advisors (ones not originally assigned to the student).
The data showed that participants seemed to regard a good advisor as someone who can help them make the right choices for the first two factors mentioned earlier, academic performances and costs. Guidance on selecting the right combination of courses (e.g., mixture of demanding and less-demanding courses), providing study tips for better grades, and telling students the necessary courses for transfer were regarded as responsibilities of advisors. Especially for participants whose goal is to 4-year transfer, any “incorrect” advice resulting in “extra” courses that are “unnecessary” for transfer requirements, therefore increasing financial and time costs, were sharply criticized. Sometimes, students seemed to expect an exact “game plan” from advisors which is illustrated in the quote below from a cosmetology student:
But from what I listened to and heard from other friends that are in college, they’ll end up taking classes that they eventually didn’t even need, and have to spend more time at school. . .. And you know, I would prefer for my advisor to give me like what I’m going to call a “game plan,” as far as, “Hey, these are the classes that you need to take, this is what your GPA needs to be like in order for you to get here.” So, I would say like a game plan.
It was also noted that participants’ understanding of the role of advisors varied. Regardless, advisors were seen as individuals with the right answers and who could be (or should be) very helpful toward successful degree attainment at UCC as well as course enrollment decisions, as captured in the quote below from a liberal arts major:
[H]aving a good advisor and a good dynamic with their advisor could help their academic performance, because it’s somebody helping you through school and stuff, especially when it can be stressful, so I feel like that would be helpful for some people. . .. I think having advisors closely helping the students, especially in their first year, would be helpful in motivating people to take more classes.
Academic Advisors’ Perspectives
According to the advisors, the totality of a student’s circumstances (academics; family/work life) was important to consider when providing guidance on course load. The advisor participants in this study believed that taking 15 credits per semester would certainly work for some, but it would not be beneficial and could be counterproductive for others with demanding work schedules, child-rearing responsibilities, and/or needed substantial academic remediation.
The student’s “ultimate goal” for the degree is usually the first place that advisors start when working with a student who is transferring to a 4-year college, applying for promotion, or seeking remedial credits. Based on such information, advisors consider “a combination of variables” when providing guidance for their students including the student’s past academic performances, full-/part-time work status, and the length of time needed for the degree most importantly, which coincided with the student participants’ responses presented earlier. The following responses from two advisors illustrate the point:
Well, it’s a combination of variables. I think you have the students that have been to other schools, have been to institutions. I think they’re a little more mature and they have some experience, so they want to, at that point, get to a destination and have some sense of achievement. . . .Because they’ve been at it. And then you’ve got the other group that has just started. They want to know how long it’s going to take to finish, because of, like you say, family obligations, family timelines. Because they don’t want to be at school more they need to be at school.
Another advisor noted:
And those students, it’s like. . .well, my students, it’s like they have to finish because of personal obligations, like most of my students. They have to finish. And some of them, they are taking remedial classes, that’s why they want to know how long it’s going to take for them to finish those remedial classes.
UCC, like many other community colleges, enrolls many “non-traditional students, working students, or older students” that make it more challenging to implement initiatives like 15 to Finish. Speaking of “non-traditional students,” one advisor explained:
Some people are really ambitious, and they do want to take the 15 hours, but realistically they have been away from school for a while, and they have children, and their responsibilities other than school. We have the non-traditional students now. We do have some, but the vast majority of our students are not the traditional student base.
Some advisors also mentioned daycare as a major challenge while another advisor pointed out public transportation as a critical issue as “the buses are not available at every single campus of [UCC].” Another advisor stated that “the financial is the main point,” which was seconded by others. Most advisors mentioned using previous academic performances (“looking at GPA”) as a main criterion for advising course loads in consideration with other factors. In terms of course content, advisory mentioned math as “the biggest stumbling block.” The following response was agreed upon by advisor participants:
[I]f it’s a new student, even if the student wants full-time, we never recommend 15 to 18 hours per semester. The first semester, just try 12 hours.
Throughout the focus group interviews, the advisors emphasized, “a lot of factors come into play.” However, the main factors that they pointed out greatly overlapped with the students’ responses in naming academic performances, financial and other costs, and full-time work challenges.
I think, to advertise to every student, because of all the variables that students deal with. Some students can take 18, 21 credit hours a semester, and some, I’ve noticed, they really need to take maybe 6 credit hours a semester.
From the advisors’ side, other issues such as the heavy advisee load and students changing majors were mentioned as challenges in carrying out initiatives like 15 to Finish. At that time, the student-to-advisor ratio at UCC in some cases could reach 700-to-1. Adding to that are students changing their majors, which creates additional advising challenges.
The advisors mentioned some rewards for students can serve as encouragements for taking more courses, such as retreats for both advisors and students or local sports game tickets for students. In promoting 15 to Finish, gamification of the initiative was also mentioned by an advisor:
[s]how them a little chart on how close they’re getting to their goal. Some type of application to say, “Hey, you are here now! This is your next step!” To kind of give students some incentive, and just some motivation, because I know how it was when I was in school in a Master program, and you’re getting constant rewards. . .. It’s those little, small ways of saying, “Hey, you’ve completed this! You are so much further along the line to being a. . .whatever,” you know, some type of accomplishment. So, I think that is a good way of keeping everybody engaged, the students. And the advisor can kind of encourage the students to the benefits of taking that extra class for 15 credit hours. And also, of course, have some supportive measures around the student, constantly telling students, “Hey, you need tutoring here. We have tutoring this date and that date.” But that’s the technology we’re talking about that the advisor needs to have to get that support to students. You know, more personalized. To support the student, we’ll meet in this environment. Just these blanket messages to all the students is just not going to be enough.
Advisors also pointed out the critical role that teachers/instructors play increasing the course enrollment “because as advisors [we] can encourage them, talk to them, but [we] can’t teach them.”
Discussion and Implications
Our findings provide a more nuanced understanding of the factors shaping community college students’ assessments of the benefits and risks of full-time enrollment. Consistent with previous work, students in our study held academic performance as a primary motivator in their registration decisions, integrating logistical and financial concerns into a framework prioritizing academic success (Jaggars, 2014; Zocco, 2009). Students considered not only their course selection but also their course load within this decision framework. Strikingly, when discussing course load, both students and advisors considered success primarily on a semester-by-semester basis, though time-to-degree was a factor. Although some students gave thought to the longer-term opportunity costs of enrolling part-time (e.g., extended time to degree and potential delay of higher employment wages), immediate concerns about academic performance with additional credit load seemed to outweigh time-to-degree concerns. Consistent with tenets of RCT (Hechter & Kanazawa, 1997; Reyna & Farley, 2006), our findings suggest that this sample of community college students, as well as their academic advisors, made credit load decisions primarily based on the utility (and concerns) of the moment, with limited consideration of the longer-term implications (e.g., academic momentum, likelihood of completion/transfer, lost opportunity costs in the labor market) of this choice.
RCT contends that students make choices they believe will maximize their utility and satisfaction while considering constraints they face (Toutkoushian & Paulsen, 2016). The cost-benefit analysis is more likely to result in a decision that maximizes utility when both the risks and rewards of the decision are well understood (Scott, 2000). However, for many community college students, their life circumstances heighten the possible risks that accompany the choice to increase their credit load. A change in job hours and unexpected financial expenses are common factors leading to course dropping at community colleges (McKinney et al., 2019; Michalski, 2014; Mukherjee et al., 2017). While unknown at the time of registration, the chance of such events occurring mid-semester factored into UCC students’ deliberations about enrolling full-time. We view the initial decision to increase one’s semester credit load as the riskiest and involving the least certainty, as a student does not know if they can successfully complete more courses until after attempting to do so. The success or non-success that results from attempting a heavier load, then, becomes pertinent information used in the student’s subsequent assessments of the cost and benefits of registering for more credit hours. In contrast, students in our study were more comfortable prioritizing long-term risks and benefits in the course selection process, specifically the negative impact that unnecessary courses would have on their total costs and time to degree.
While most 15 to Finish programs promote full-time enrollment to the entire campus, our findings indicate that for a significant proportion of community college students, incentivizing enrollment in “one more course” may be a more effective and realistic strategy. Data from both students and academic advisors made clear that a combination of academic, financial, familial, employment, transportation, and time constraints make full-time attendance nearly impossible for some students. However, these students may believe they can complete one more course, particularly in a context that supports their financial or other nonacademic needs. Research on effective implementation of campus programs underscores the importance of first identifying the appropriate target group for intervention (Richburg-Hayes, 2014). Consequently, it is critical that community colleges encourage the right students to take a measured risk to increase their credit load to full-time, while targeting others to take “one more course,” and recognizing some students are already at the appropriate credit load. Though our sample was small relative to the overall size of the UCC student population, our findings suggest that encouraging all students to take more courses could have an unintended “cooling out” effect (Clark, 1960), as taking too many credits can result in behaviors (e.g., failing or dropping courses, poor course performance) that reduce some students’ aspirations and motivation for degree completion.
Our findings suggest that it may be easier for both advisors and students to think in terms of “one more course” rather than full-time versus part-time enrollment. Advisors worry that, if they overload students with courses, students will fail and will not persist. Advisors fear overwhelming students in the short term and struggle to balance getting students through quickly with concern for the demands students face in the short-term. This is often compounded by students’ previous educational experiences and, in the case of first-generation students, students’ lack of knowledge about the system in general. Especially when students are not college-ready, advisors consider enrollment in too many courses to be risky. However, this impulse to protect students from too many courses has equity implications, as minoritized students are more likely to be underprepared for college-level work, but research shows they can benefit from an increased credit load and/or enrollment in summer courses (Attewell & Monaghan, 2016; Attewell et al., 2012; Huntington-Klein & Gill, 2020). Incentivizing enrollment in one more course may be a more inclusive strategy to promote increased credit momentum for community college students—many of whom must prioritize the present rather than longer-term opportunity costs when making enrollment decisions—than a traditional 15 to Finish program.
While our project continues to collect additional data from students and advisors, the findings presented in this current study have implications for implementation and policy at the institutional level. Students’ prescriptive comments primarily focused on wanting advisor guidance about which courses to choose rather than how many. Yet, course load is predictive of both earning a degree and transfer (Doyle, 2009, 2011; Wang, 2017). As implementation of Guided Pathways results in more structure and, therefore, potentially less need for discussion about specific course selection, advisors and students may have more opportunity to discuss the impact of course load on success. This requires that institutions support both students and advisors with planning aids that allow flexibility in the number of courses in which students enroll. Particularly at the community college level, structured pathways assuming full-time enrollment may not meet the needs of students. Suggestions about which courses might best be taken together, with an expanded focus on the relation between credit load and credential or transfer outcomes, might assist students in incorporating these important factors into their decision-making process. Additionally, targeted professional development for advisors on these issues might increase their awareness as well.
Second, it is important to consider which students to encourage for increased credit load and how to support them. Students in our sample clearly indicated that the increased financial burden, in increased costs including books and travel time were important factors. Incentives like banded tuition were particularly attractive but are more easily implemented in a 15 to Finish framework than a one-more-course campaign. Advisors agreed that incentives could motivate students to increase their credit load and discussed the potential effect of recognizing and motivating students. This illustrates the extent to which removing financial and logistical risks can encourage increased enrollment but would not fully eliminate academic risks. Three possibilities that could encourage additional enrollment and support success are guaranteed structured schedules in which courses are offered consecutively at a single location, availability of courses using open educational resources (OER) or low-cost textbooks and learning communities with linked courses in which faculty intentionally space out requirements such as tests to even out student workload. To be effective, students might need advisors to discuss explicitly the availability and significance of these initiatives. Limiting textbook costs, either through low-cost or no-cost initiatives, could reduce the perceived financial risk. However, at the time of this study, UCC had a heavily advertised zero-cost textbook initiative and our interviewees across different academic majors still commented on the unpredictable expense of textbooks, underscoring the importance of the role advisors or financial aid counselors play in considering the financial possibilities with students and assisting in the decision-making process.
There are several potential directions for future research in this area. First, we need to better understand the extent to which advisors consider the time and economic benefits of increased course load and the circumstances in which they discuss these factors with students. Second, future studies could identify the timing and conditions under which students can handle increased enrollment, and, when students drop courses, how they decide which courses to keep and which to drop, particularly for part-time students. Third, institutional-level transcript and enrollment data could be analyzed to determine how specific credit-load choices (e.g., one-more-course vs. adding multiple courses) affect students’ GPA, persistence, and completion/transfer outcomes.
Conclusion
For thousands of community college students like Deidra, the decision to attempt more courses is complex and involves a high-level of risk. Deidra, with guidance from her academic advisor, must assess the long-term costs and benefits of this decision while weighing a wide range of academic, financial, logistical, employment, and familial factors. The stakes of this decision are particularly high. Succeeding with a higher credit load increases Deidra’s academic momentum and chances for degree completion. Conversely, if Deidra attempts too many courses, she is at heighted risk for failing or withdrawing from coursework. Our findings indicate the risk of failure due to over commitment is extremely salient to both advisors and students. The overall success of 15 to Finish programs depends upon students making informed decisions about their credit load and having the time and resources to successfully complete 15 credits. By illuminating the key contextual factors that students and academic advisors use in this decision-making process, our goal is to shape public policies and institutional practices in ways that enable more students like Deidra to make enrollment decisions that ultimately result in degree completion.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article:This study was completed as part of a research project funded by the Greater Texas Foundation. The opinions expressed in this report are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Greater Texas Foundation or any director, officer or employee thereof.
