Is Noncredit Education an On-Ramp to Credit Coursework in Community Colleges? Evidence From Iowa and California Community Colleges

The authors, including Peter Bahr and Mark D’Amico, examine whether community college students who start in noncredit programs later transition into credit coursework in the same field of study, finding that while relatively few students make the transition overall (6% in Iowa and 23% in California), many who do are able to “bridge” into related credit programs—29% of transitioners in Iowa and 53% in California. It concludes that bridging is most common in occupational fields in Iowa and precollege remediation fields in California, suggesting that programs with high enrollment, transition, and bridge rates are promising targets for strengthening pathways from noncredit to credit education.