North Carolina's community colleges -- including Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte -- were cited in a national report this week highlighting efforts to streamline pathways from their classrooms to a university or career.



Too often, the report's authors say, students enroll in community colleges but gain no ground toward getting a degree or finding a job. While more students are taking classes, only about half are graduating within six years, and the percentage is falling.



North Carolina's community college system gets a plug for coming up with structured pathways to guide students through the curriculum. Basically, the schools have worked with universities in the state to make sure community college classes will be fully transferable and progress toward a degree.

Schools have streamlined requirements in career and tech programs and eliminated redundant classes.



A group of schools have also come up with a program for high school juniors or seniors that allows them to get on a track toward college transfer or a technical degree. It lays out what exact classes they'll need to take to stay on course.



The state has also been developing ways to get students through remedial work more quickly. Instead of enrolling in semester-long courses to get caught up, students are able to take combined reading and writing courses and focus only on math concepts they need work on. CPCC has built a dedicated computer lab on its campus to let students work through math concepts at their own pace.



The report comes from the national nonprofit Jobs for the Future, which advocates for change in schools and career-training programs to better train people in job skills.



The authors describe North Carolina's initiatives as model programs.



Ohio also gets a mention for tying state funding for community colleges to the percentages of students completing degrees or certain numbers of credit hours. Every public high school is also required to have dual-enrollment programs with a community college. These are starting to become more widespread in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools with CPCC.



Florida has passed a state law that creates "meta-majors" in community colleges that allow students to take prerequisites in broad fields like health science or business without choosing a specific major right away.