3.1 What is GP?

Community colleges in the United States provide access to higher education for over 10 million students each year, representing nearly half of the nation's undergraduates...The role community colleges play in providing postsecondary access to underrepresented students is obvious when one examines the demographics of their enrollment: they serve a disproportionate number of low-income, immigrant, first-generation, and ethnic minority students...Yet most students who enter these colleges never finish: fewer than four of every ten complete any type of degree or certificate within six years.

-Bailey, Jaggers, & Jenkins, Redesigning America's community colleges

From Theory to Practice

The 2015 book, Redesigning America’s community colleges: A clearer path to student success, synthesized two decades of research to argue that community colleges needed to fundamentally redesign their programs and support services in order to substantially improve graduation rates and narrow completion gaps. Rather than providing confusing "cafeteria-style" menus with hundreds of programs to choose from, this new "guided pathways" (GP) approach would offer clear, educationally-coherent pathways to credentials, preparing students for success in the workforce or further education (Jenkins, Lahr, Fink, & Ganga, 2018).

Since the book was published in 2015, GP has become a national movement - as of 2018, more than 250 community colleges have committed to undertaking large-scale GP reforms as part of national, state, or regional efforts (Jenkins et al., 2018).

Note: For a more extensive history, see "The movement toward pathways Links to an external site." (AACC, 2015).

Structured & Holistic Approach

GP is a highly-structured approach to student success, with an emphasis on:

  • Increased retention
  • Degree completion

The idea is to provide students with a set of clear course-taking patterns (to promote better enrollment decisions) and to integrate support services that make it easier for students to get help during each step of their college experience (CCCCO, 2017 Links to an external site.).

It is also a holistic approach to student engagement connecting the many different, often siloed, structures that exist in our institutions. GP shifts the paradigm from expecting students to arrive “college-ready” to developing the institution to be “student-ready” for all learners.

Overview

Please watch this brief video covering the basics of GP:

Textbox: Bailey, T. R., Jaggars, S. S., & Jenkins, D. (2015). Redesigning America's community colleges: A clearer path to student success Links to an external site.. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Jenkins, D., Lahr, H., Fink, J., & Ganga, E. (2018, April). What we are learning about Guided Pathways Links to an external site..

AACC. (2015). The movement toward pathways Links to an external site..

California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office. (2017, September 8). Guided Pathways at California Community Colleges Links to an external site..

"Structured & Holistic" text adapted from An Introduction to Guided Pathways, available on the Vision Resource Center Links to an external site., by the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office Links to an external site.

Video: "Guided Pathways at Washington State's Community and Technical Colleges Links to an external site." by Washington SBCTC Links to an external site. is licensed under CC BY 4.0 Links to an external site.