The traditional mission of community colleges is rooted in the provision of sub-baccalaureate education at a low price, but a total of 19 states have changed their legislative policies and currently allow community colleges to offer community college baccalaureate (CCB) degree programs. This study examines the impact of CCB adoption on the tuition and fees at CCB-adopting institutions. We leverage a novel national dataset and employ a difference-in-differences regression approach to find that CCB adoption is associated with increases in tuition and fees at public community colleges.

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Objective: This study examines whether Louisiana’s performance-based funding (PBF) implementation in 2011 impacts various academic outcomes at community colleges, and whether the impact varies for institutions with higher proportions of underrepresented students. Method: Using institutional-level panel data between 2006 and 2016, I employ difference-in-differences to estimate the average treatment effect of the Granting Resources and Autonomies for Diplomas (GRAD) Act on credential production, retention, and graduation rates of Louisiana’s community colleges. I also examine how this effect differs between minority-serving-institutions (MSI) and non-MSIs, as well as between low-income-student-serving institutions (LSI) and non-LSI by calculating difference-in-difference-in-differences (DDD) estimates. Results: The findings indicate that PBF implementation is positively related to community colleges’ certificate production and graduation rates in Louisiana, but it has no impact on associate degree production or retention rates. Due to PBF implementation, LSIs grant fewer associate degrees than comparable non-LSI institutions. No disparate impact is found between MSIs and comparable non-MSIs. Contributions: Given the prevalence of PBF in the nation, this study examines the overall impact of PBF implementation on academic outcomes of community colleges in Louisiana, and it further disaggregates the community colleges by institutional characteristics, providing evidence for researchers and policymakers to support broad access and student success at MSIs and LSIs under PBF.

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Zika virus (ZIKV) is an arbovirus first discovered in the Americas. ZIKV infection is insidious based on its mild clinical symptoms observed after infection. In Brazil, after 2015, ZIKV infection broke out on a large scale, and many infected pregnant women gave birth to babies with microcephaly. The teratogenic effects of the virus on the fetus and its effects on nerves and the immune system have attracted great attention. Currently, no specific prophylactics or therapeutics are clinically available to treat ZIKV infection. Development of a safe and effective vaccine is essential to prevent the rise of any potential pandemic. In this review, we summarize the latest research on Zika vaccine development based on different strategies, including DNA vaccines, subunit vaccines, live-attenuated vaccines, virus-vector-based vaccines, inactivated vaccines, virus-like particles (VLPs), mRNA-based vaccines, and others. We anticipate that this review will facilitate further progress toward the development of effective and safe vaccines against ZIKV infection.