Building Pathways to Success for Low-Skill Adult Students: Lessons for Community College Policy and Practice from a Statewide Longitudinal Tracking Study

This report is based on a first-of-its-kind study of the progress and outcomes of low-skill adults in community colleges. The study uses student record information from the Washington State Community and Technical College System to track two cohorts of adult students 25 or older with at most a high school education who entered one of the state's community or technical colleges for the first time in 1996–97 or 1997–98. The study examines the educational attainment of the students in both cohorts as well as their earnings five years after they enrolled.