Incentivizing Full-Time Enrollment at Community Colleges: What Influences Students’ Decision to Take More Courses?

Objective: Students’ enrollment intensity during their first academic semester and year are highly influential in their success and decisions to persist in community college. Limited research, however, has focused on understanding how students navigate the decision-making process of determining their credit load or how institutional support services, such as academic advising, influence these decisions. Our objective was to advance knowledge on this topic by examining the implementation of a 15 to Finish campaign to promote full-time enrollment at a large, racially/ethnically diverse community college system in Texas. Methods: We interviewed 24 students and eight academic advisors to identify key factors that influence recommendations for, and selection of, course load. The collection and analysis of the data employed the critical qualitative inquiry method, and data were analyzed through low- and high-level coding processes using reconstructive analysis. Results: The factors influencing student decision-making fall into three major areas: (1) academic performance, (2) financial considerations and other costs, and (3) advising experiences, with academic performance framing students’ discussion. Academic advisors agreed with the importance of full-time enrollment for students’ success and recognized the importance of reducing time-to-degree, but believed many students were not academically prepared or had too many commitments to enroll in 15 credits each semester. Conclusion: Consequently, a “one-more-course” approach may be more attractive for both students and advisors. We outline recommendations that better enable community college students to make optimal credit load decisions, which in turn can increase their academic momentum and chances for degree completion.