Community colleges serve as the entry point to postsecondary education for millions of Americans, including disproportionate shares of racial minority, low-income, and first-generation college students, as well as large numbers of working adults, part-time students, and those returning to formal education later in life. Given these varied backgrounds and circumstances, students arrive at community colleges with wide-ranging goals, from earning associate degrees and certificates, to gaining job-specific skills or licenses, to transferring to four-year institutions. Yet many students never reach these goals. Within six years of enrolling, fewer than half have earned a credential of any kind, and although nearly 80 percent say they intend to earn a bachelor’s degree, fewer than one in five have.