About CCSSE

The Community College Survey of Student Engagement, or CCSSE, provides insight into students’ experiences with learning, relationships, support, and institutional practices throughout their time in college.

CCSSE results help colleges understand how students spend their time, what they gain from their coursework, how they interact with faculty and peers, and whether they can access the support they need to make progress toward their goals.

By examining the student experience directly, colleges can identify strengths, uncover gaps among student groups, and focus improvement efforts on the practices that matter most for student learning, persistence, and completion.

Community and technical colleges serve students with a wide range of goals, backgrounds, responsibilities, and educational experiences. Enrollment and outcome data can show whether students persist and complete, but those data do not fully explain what students experience along the way.

CCSSE is administered during the spring academic term to students who have generally been enrolled at the college long enough to reflect on their experiences. The survey asks students about their coursework, interactions with faculty and classmates, use of academic and student services, time commitments, educational planning, and progress toward their goals.

Student-reported data give colleges information that administrative records alone cannot provide. CCSSE helps institutions examine whether students are actively engaged in learning, building meaningful relationships, receiving effective support, and experiencing clear pathways toward completion, transfer, or employment.

CCSSE helps colleges understand the quality of the student experience across the institution.

The survey focuses on educational practices and student behaviors associated with learning, persistence, and attainment. Results provide colleges with a common source of evidence for examining institutional effectiveness and identifying areas for improvement.

CCSSE complements the Survey of Entering Student Engagement, or SENSE. While SENSE focuses on students’ experiences as they enter college and during the opening weeks of the academic term, CCSSE provides a broader view of the experiences of students who have progressed further into their college journey.

CCSSE was established in 2001 as a project of the Community College Leadership Program at The University of Texas at Austin. Grants from several funders have supported the work over the years.

CCSSE works in partnership with NSSE, a survey that focuses on four-year colleges and universities. Established in 1998, NSSE is headquartered at Indiana University in the Center for Postsecondary Research and Planning. The NSSE survey, administered to first-year and senior students in four-year institutions, emerged in response to concerns about quality in American undergraduate education and about the lack of emphasis on student learning in the major (and highly visible) college rankings in the United States.

From the beginning, though, there was a recognized need for a student engagement survey specifically designed for community and technical colleges. Thus, CCSSE was launched in 2001, with the intention of producing new information about community college quality and performance that would provide value to institutions in their efforts to improve student learning and retention, while also providing policymakers and the public with more appropriate ways to view the quality of undergraduate education.

CCSSE is a product and service of the Center for Community College Student Engagement, which is part of the Program for Higher Education Leadership in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at The University of Texas at Austin. CCCSE staff receives expert guidance from a National Advisory Board. Board members include representatives from key partner organizations, community college presidents, and state directors of community colleges.