Arke Primack Scale (APS; Media Literacy)
Category: Student Learning
Condensed courses—those that compress instructional content into a shorter time frame—are increasingly popular in higher education. While they offer greater flexibility, concerns remain that the accelerated pace may compromise learning. Using administrative data from a state community college system, we provide the first large-scale evidence of their effects on students’ immediate and downstream outcomes. Leveraging a two-way fixed effects model, we find that condensed courses increase pass rates and improve both enrollment and performance in subsequent courses. The positive impacts on downstream outcomes are particularly pronounced among adults and underrepresented minority students, who are also disproportionately enrolled in condensed formats.
Keywords
Condensed Courses; Community College; Student Success; Adult Learning
Education level
Topics
Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/rcrt-tx56
