Understand how students experience college—and where colleges can strengthen engagement and success.
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.
About CCSSE
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.
Why CCSSE?
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.
How Colleges Use CCSSE Data
Colleges use CCSSE data to:
- Understand the student experience
Examine students’ experiences with academic challenge, active and collaborative learning, interactions with faculty and peers, student support, advising, and educational planning.
- Identify barriers and gaps
Disaggregate results to determine whether students’ experiences differ by demographic characteristics, enrollment patterns, academic goals, or other available student characteristics.
- Strengthen programs and practices
Use findings to support conversations among college leaders, faculty, advisors, student services professionals, and other employees about opportunities to improve teaching, learning, support, persistence, and completion.
- Monitor progress over time
Compare results across administrations to assess whether institutional changes are producing meaningful improvements in the student experience.
Project Governance
CCSSE is a product and service of the Center for Community College Student Engagement, which is part of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at The University of Texas at Austin.
