Central to the paper is the structure hypothesis: that community college students will be more likely to persist and succeed in programs that are tightly and consciously structured, with relatively little room for individuals to unintentionally deviate from paths toward completion, and with limited bureaucratic obstacles for students to circumnavigate. Evidence suggests that the lack of structure in many community colleges is likely to result in less-than-optimal decisions by students about whether and how to persist toward a credential.
CCRC paper that examines how the current enrollment systems and structures that allow students to choose their own course impact completion. Useful given proposals like CCA's support for more structured programs and cohort based models at community colleges.