Managment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Managment - Essay Example Basically, â€Å"project management can be defined as the planning, organizing, scheduling, leading, communicating, and controlling of work activities to achieve a predefined outcome, on time and within budget,† Josler & Burger (2005). It can be observed that a project is comprised of the following features: it is unique, it has a definite start and a definite end (Fox, 2008). There are many factors that can contribute to the success or failure of a project. Guru (2008) states that the aspect of project success is a recurring theme in the discipline of project management and there are different views that are attributed to the success or failure of the project. For instance, Heerkens (2001) suggests that the effectiveness and leadership styles of the project manager significantly contribute to the success of the project. There are different aspects that are often considered when people speak of project success. According to Guru (2008, p.1), â€Å"De Wit (1988) and other writ ers distinguish between project success (measured against the overall objectives of the project) and project management success (measured against the widespread and traditional measures of performance against cost, time and quality).† Jones (2007) also state that the success factors of the project mainly depend on its ability to achieve the desired goals. Indeed, in each project, a particular outcome is expected to be witnessed if all measures have been properly carried out in a project. In this particular case, the discussion will be centered on project success where at attempt will be made to establish if the Residential Care Services Project achieved its goals as well as the measures that could be implemented in order to improve... This paper stresses that there is poor communication between the manager and other teams. This is likely to impact negatively on the project since it may be difficult for the project manager to coordinate the efforts of all members to pull their efforts towards the same direction. It is important for the project manager of Residential Care Services Project to create open channels of communication that can help the project members to have mutual understanding towards the desired goals in the project. This report makes a conclusion that a project is unique in many ways as discussed. For instance, it has a definite start and finish and it is mainly undertaken in order to achieve a specific outcome. Managing a project is a process that requires concerted efforts in order for it to be a success. As discussed above, there are various measures that can be implemented in order to ensure that the Residential Care Services Project is a success. It has also been observed that this project is facing numerous problems that can impact on its success. As discussed above, there is need for the project manager to make sure that he steers the project in the right direction. There is also need for involvement of all the members of the project in the decision making process so that they can share the same vision with the project managers. This can make it relatively easy to achieve the goals of the project if people involved share the same vision towards the expected goals.

Entrepreneurship And Innovation At The Mcdonalds Commerce Essay

Entrepreneurship And Innovation At The Mcdonalds Commerce Essay Creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship are three essential tools of success for companies in the increasingly challenging business environment. Where, creativity is the ability to develop new ideas and discover new ways of looking at problems and opportunities, Innovation is the key to economic development of any country. Inventions and innovations are the building blocks of the future and Entrepreneurship is the process of creating something new with value by devoting the necessary time and effort assuming the accompanying financial psychic, social risks and receiving the resulting rewards of monetary value and personal satisfaction and independence. All three call for new ideas and there is an element of risk involved in the implementation and the acceptability of the new idea. Where creativity is the ability to generate an idea, innovation is the process of the idea creation and entrepreneur is the person who performs both to become who he is, takes the risk, implements the i dea in the form of a venture. In this fiercely competitive, fast faced global economy creativity is not only an important source of building a competitive advantage but is also a necessity for survival. When developing creative solutions to modern problems, entrepreneurs must go beyond merely using whatever has been used in the past. McDonalds is one such company which has earned its brand image over the years with effective use of entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation all put in right place in the organization allowing the company to achieve massive competitive advantages and an edge at building new ideas and defining new and better means of customer satisfaction. The company serves around 50 million customers in 30,000 destinations worldwide on a daily basis and pulling that off whilst successfully obtaining high revenues is a job that requires continuous innovation and out of the box thinking. McDonalds focus over the years has been nothing less than the customer itself. McDonalds took its strong roots in building a name in innovation during the 1990s and the early 2000ss when the competition first started to grow. McDonalds at that time did not take its brand equity for granted and infused its creative teams minds into the thought process that have and continue to generate innovative products and campaigns like Big Mac and Egg McMuffin (Entrepreneur, 2006 [online]). McDonalds offers an extensive case study of the application of a well thought of and thorough innovation strategy, a product planning and developmental process that effectively reflects the changing industry, its opportunity recognition and analysis to stay on top, and the Mcdonalization culture and leadership embedded with innovation that it follows to successfully practice innovation in all aspects and obtain customer satisfaction that defines industry standards. But even for a company like McDonalds room still exists for improvement. The paper analyses the company on these aspects. The paper after analysis of the corporate entrepreneurship and innovation strategy being following in the company will attempt to establish recommendation for the enhancement of the competitive advantages of the company. Innovation Strategy Think big, start small, scale fast. This is the innovation strategy being followed by McDonalds. This idea was brought together by the managing director of McDonalds Ventures, Mats Lederhausen (Entrepreneur, 2006 [online]). The key players are all of the employees of the company who are well ingrained with the 5PS that form the paradox of the company. These 5 PS are: People, Product, Promotion, Place and Price. The innovation that takes place in the company is all customer-oriented and started with people and ends with people making effective use of company resources, offers and tools. The innovation strategy is built on one concept: Customer is king. The insights and demands of the customers are the main triggers of the entire innovation process. The franchisees are known as owner-operators who are a big part of the innovation chain. Keeping such diversified franchises and their thought processes altogether merged with the company objectives and essence is a big challenge which can not be controlled or centralized. The innovation process is decentralized making the owner-operators feel as much important in the company as those who are part of the core headquarters as well as encouraging them to create competitive advantages for the company. McDonalds seizes every opportunity it can to bring innovation and lead the industry. McDonalds success is also based upon its suppliers that are part of the three-legged stool. For McDonalds, the quality of its products is of absolute importance. It specifies highest standards for suppliers in the food industry. McDonalds focuses on developing close relationships with suppliers. At McDonalds, everything is done on an open accounting, handshake trust basis  (Times100, 2009). McDonalds works closely with the suppliers to develop and improve products and production techniques. This dependency is described as a three-legged stool principle, and involves McDonalds, the franchisees and the suppliers. The growth and success of t he McDonalds, in this way, is shared by the suppliers of the restaurant who are able to meet the quality standards (Times100, 2009). For McDonalds, the relationships between franchisor, franchisee and supplier are of paramount importance to the success of the innovation led business. The Process of Innovation and Creativity The owner operators are small business owners who have the entrepreneurial zeal in them and offer various ideas and creative insights that form success drivers for the company. Thus, they are involved in each of the innovation steps and processes. Each of the franchise of McDonalds is in itself a mini laboratory that has millions of potential ideas stored just waiting to be explored and the owner operators are the main source of their retrieval and practice. Sources of Ideas For McDonalds, following are the main sources of ideas. Consumers are the foremost innovation triggers. These include potential as well as existing ones. They are given great importance and attention to point to new directions. This attention takes the form of informally monitoring potential ideas and needs and formally arranging for consumers to have an opportunity to express their opinions (Bygrave, 2008). Existing products and services in the market are also continuously monitored or evaluated to uncover ways to improve the services. This results in innovative products and services that have more market appeal with better sales and profit potential. Owner-Operators, like mentioned above, are the biggest and most effective source of ideas for McDonalds as they offer insights of local appeals surrounding the franchises, which are then incorporated into new products and services. McDonalds introduction of Apple and Walnut salads is one such example of its catering to the local demands, which were communicated effectively by the owner operators. But there are also many demands, such as Shrimp salads that McDonalds cannot currently cater to, because of lack of resources. Federal Government is also a source of new product ideas in two ways. First, the files of the Patent Office contain numerous new product possibilities. Although the patents themselves may not be feasible, they can frequently suggest other more marketable product ideas. Second, new product ideas can come in response to government regulations (Drucker, 2008) Research and Development is yet another but large source of innovative ideas for McDonalds. McDonalds has its mini-laboratories in each of its franchises as well as large laboratories in its head-quarters in US which are continuously engaged in bringing in new product ideas and ingredients and recipes to win customer satisfaction. The Creative Process Although, creative ideas may appear to strike McDonalds as suddenly as a bolt of lightning but they are actually the result of the creative process, which involves the following steps: Preparation Investigation Transformation Incubation Verification Implementation Preparation involves getting the mind ready for creative thinking. Preparation includes a formal education, on the job training, work experience and taking advantage of other learning opportunities. This training provides a foundation on which to build creativity and innovation. Investigation is where a solid understanding of the problem, situation or the decision at hand is developed. Transformation involves viewing similarities and differences in the information collected. This phase requires two types of thinking: convergent and divergent thinking. Convergent thinking is the ability to see the similarities and the connections among various data and events. Divergent thinking is the ability to see the differences among various data and events. The subconscious needs time to reflect on to the information collected, this is done during the incubation phase. Next comes the illumination phase, where a spontaneous breakthrough causes the light bulb to go on. McDonalds Innovation Council then verifies the ideas where it conducts experimentation to test the success potential in the idea generated. Implementation then follows where the idea is transformed to reality (Entrepreneur, 2006 [online]). Opportunity Recognition and Analysis A business opportunity represents a possibility for the entrepreneur to successfully fill a large enough unsatisfied need that enough sales and profits result. Recognition of an opportunity results from the knowledge and experience of the company and its employees. McDonalds makes effective use of its knowledge base and maintains proper records of its previous industry analysis to point to new directions and market niches to exploit profits out of. Each and every innovative opportunity is carefully assessed through an opportunity analysis plan. This opportunity analysis plan comprises of four sections: A description of the idea and its competition; An assessment of the domestic and international market of the idea; As assessment of the entrepreneur and the team; and A discussion of the steps needed to make the idea the basis for a viable business venture. Product Planning and Development Process Once ideas emerge from idea sources or creative problem solving, they need further development and evaluation. The product planning and development process at McDonalds is divided into five stages: The idea stage The concept stage Product development stage Test marketing stage commercialization Organizational Culture McDonalds has succeeded because it offers consumers, workers, and managers efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. This constitutes the McDonalds model of work practice and work design, known as McDonalization. McDonalds is a global capitalist organization that transforming the production, consumption and distribution of food more importantly everyday life. McDonalds employs Taylors and Fords methods in its assembly line production. Ritzer discerns four elements of Mcdonalization: Efficiency Calculability Predictability and Control (Haworth, n.d.) McDonalds offers efficiency, which is the optimum method for getting from one point to another. This means that McDonalds offers the best available way to get from being hungry to being full. For working people, quick and easy access to food is a blessing and McDonald offers just that through its efficient work practices. This fast-food model offers people an efficient method for satisfying many needs. (Ritzer, 1996, Pp. 9-11) To achieve this efficiency, workers in McDonaldized systems function efficiently. They are provided with training to work this way by managers, who supervise over them closely to make sure they come up to standards. This is ensured by organizational rules and regulations regarding production of highly efficient work. On the other hand, McDonalds also offers calculability, which is an emphasis on the quantitative aspects of products sold (portion size, cost) and service offered. Quantity has become equivalent to quality; that is something that must be good. The common customers perception of bigger is better, is very successfully satisfied with McDonalds Quarter Pounder, the Big Mac, and the large fries. People quantify these things and realize that they are getting a lot of food for quite less money. For consumers this is the best deal but for the food-food outlets this is the extraordinary profitability. (Ritzer, 1996, Pp. 9-11) Consumers also calculate the time it takes to drive to McDonalds, be served the food, eat it, and return home; and then, they compare that duration to the time required to prepare food at home. They believe that it takes them less time to get it from McDonalds than prepare the whole meal at home. This calculation obviously supports home-delivery franchises such as Mcdonalds, which emphasis on time saving. The McDonaldized institutions combine the emphases on time and money. Workers at McDonaldized systems emphasize the quantitative rather than the qualitative aspects of their work. This causes the workers to focus more on the amount of work they do rather than how well they do it, at times. This is how McDonalds employs Frederick Taylors Scientific management work practices, that related the work directly with pay. (Daft, 1997) The third element of the McDonalization is that McDonalds offers predictability, the assurance that the products and services will be the same every time and in all outlets. For example, the Egg McMuffin in New York is identical to those in Chicago and Los Angeles. To be more precise, those eaten next week or next year will be identical to those eaten today. This provides a great comfort in knowing that McDonalds offers no surprises, its service is predictable. People know that the next Egg McMuffin they eat will taste about the same as the others they have eaten; it will be what is expected and in mind of the consumer. The success of the McDonalds model explains that many people have come to prefer a world in which there are few surprises, because unpredictability can be dangerous too (Ritzer, 1996, Pp. 9-11) . Relating this to the work practices at McDonalds, the workers in McDonaldized systems also behave in predictable ways. They are confined by the corporate rules as well as the dictates of their managers. McDonalds offers extensive training to its employees, which is so standardized that whatever the employees say at customer touch points is scripted by the managers themselves. McDonalds has pioneered in the routinization of interactive service work (Ritzer, 1996, Pp. 9-11). Fourthly, McDonalds practices control, especially through the substitution of nonhuman for human technology. A human technology is controlled by people; a nonhuman technology (controls people. The people who eat in fast-food restaurants are controlled through lines, limited menus, few options, and uncomfortable seats. All of these enable the customers to eat quickly and leave (Ritzer, 1996, Pp. 9-11). The employees in McDonalds working under the McDonaldized organizations are also controlled to a high degree. They are provided trained to do a limited number of tasks in precisely the way they are ordered to do them. The technologies and the way the organization is set up reinforce this control. Managers and supervisors make sure that workers follow the line. (Ritzer, 1996, Pp. 9-11). How does McDonalds makes sure employees follow up to this control? It threatens them to replace them with technology. But employees cannot be controlled from fouling up the systems operation. The manager cannot control a slow worker, who can still make the preparation and delivery of a Big Mac inefficient and worker who refuses to follow the rules might leave the pickles or special sauce off a hamburger, thereby making for unpredictability. And then a distracted worker can put too few fries in the box, making an order of large fries seem skimpy. It is for these reasons, McDonalds has been obliged to steadily replace human beings with non-human technologies, such as the soft-drink dispenser that shuts itself off when the glass is full, the french-fry machine that rings and lifts itself out of the oil when the fries are crisp, the preprogrammed cash register that eliminates the need for the cashier to calculate prices and amounts, and, perhaps at some future time, the robot capable of making hamburgers. Such technologies increase the companys control over workers. And in this way McDonalds can assure customers that their employees and service will be consistent (Ritzer, 1996, Pp. 9-11). Increasing Competitive Advantages Being an innovation leader in the food service industry, McDonalds does not let its creative heads fall asleep. It is always looking for new directions to improve its customer services to pave way for profitable business. Following are the ways in which McDonalds can sustain and increase its competitive advantage in the face of aggressive rivalry in the food service industry. Enhancing Organizational Creativity McDonalds can enhance its organizational creativity by: Embracing diversity one of the best ways to cultivate a culture of creativity is to hire a diverse workforce. When people solve problems or come up with ideas, they do so in the same framework of their experience. Hiring people from different backgrounds, cultural experiences, hobbies, and interests provides the company with crucial raw material needed for creativity. Expecting Creativity employees rend to rise- or fall- to the level of expectations of entrepreneurs have of them. One of the best ways to communicate the expectation of creativity is to give employees permission to be creative (Morris, 2009) Expecting and tolerating failure creative ideas will produce failures as wells as successes. People who never fail are not being creative. Creativity requires taking chances and managers must remove employees fear of failure. The surest way to quash creativity throughout an organization is to punish employees who try something new and fail. Encouraging curiosity McDonalds may keep its managers and employees asking the question what if and take a maybe we could attitude to break out of assumptions that limit creativity. Viewing Problems as Challenges every problem offers an opportunity for innovation. Entrepreneurs who allow employees to dump all of their problems to desk to be fixed do nothing to develop the creativity within those employees. Providing Creative Training almost everyone has the capacity to be creative, but developing creativity requires training. Training accomplished through books, seminars, workshops and professional meeting can help everyone learn to tap their creative capacity. Providing Support the higher level management of McDonalds should give employees the tools and resources they need to be creative. One of the most valuable resources is time. Rewarding creativity they can also encourage creativity by rewarding it when it occurs. Financial rewards can be effective motivation but non-monetary rewards such as praise, recognition, and celebration can be more powerful incentives. Modeling Creative Behavior creativity is caught as much as it is taught. Companies that excel at innovation find that the passion for creativity starts at the top. Entrepreneurs set examples of creative behavior, take chance and challenge the status quo will soon find their employees doing the same (Morris, 2009). Improving the Creative Process Teams of people working together usually can generate more and more creative idea. Three techniques McDonalds can use to improve the quality of creative ideas that follow from its Innovation Council: brainstorming, mind-mapping and rapid prototyping. Brainstorming is a process in which a small group of people interact with very little structure with the goal of producing a large quantity of novel and imaginative ideas. Another useful tool for jump-starting creativity is mind mapping, an extension of brainstorming. The strength of mind mapping is that it reflects the way the brain actually works. Rather than browsing out ideas in a linear fashion, the brain jumps from one idea to another. Generating creative ideas is a critical step in the process of taking an idea for a product or a service successfully to the market. However, entrepreneurs find that most of their ideas wont work and thats where rapid prototyping plays an important part in the creative process. The promise behind rapid prototyping is that transforming an idea into an actual model will point out flaws in the original idea and will lead to improvements in its design (Hisrich, 2009). Conclusion Dick and Mac were the ones who opened the first McDonalds restaurant in 1940 in San Bernardino, California, and at that time they could not have imagined the worldwide phenomial success that McDonalds now enjoys. What got them famous was their winning formula of selling a high quality product cheaply and quickly. The business really began to grow immensely once Ray Kroc, a Chicago based salesman, who was a marketing expert, joined the team (Watson, 2002). He decided to spread McDonalds formula throughout the United States and beyond. McDonalds now has more than 30,000 restaurants all over the world. Its serves 46 million customers everyday, that is equal to a lunch and dinner for every man, woman, and child in the world! McDonalds enjoys sales over $38bn from the entire world, which make it the biggest food service company internationally. McDonalds paradox of success lies with innovation and giving customer satisfaction the priority for its service offerings and operations. It keeps track of industry changes, anticipates consumer preferences and incorporates them into the product. Also, insights and communication with owner operators provides new product ideas and a highly effective and successful innovation process that is dealt by the McDonalds innovation council and together with the organizational culture of McDonalisation, it is practicing innovation in all aspects and providing innovation embedded services all around the world. But even a company like McDonalds has room for improvement, whereby it can enhance the creativity of its organization by infusing the culture of innovation more predominantly than before into each organizational level and improving the overall creative idea generating process. In the face of globalization, innovation offers a highly effective opportunity which companies like McDonald are making effective use of but it is more of a continuous process rather than a one-time thing.

James Prescott Joule :: biographies bio

- James Prescott Joule - - Born: 1818 Died 1889 - Joule's career in the sciences began quite early in his life. As early as 16, Prescott was under the tutelage of James Dalton. His experiments soon followed in a laboratory he built in his family's basement. By this time, many scientists had begun hypothesizing on the interrelationships between heat, electricity, and magnetism - and by the 1840's Joule had formulated not only the well known "Joule's Law" but also a principle for conservation of energy. In the 1850's, Joule worked together with another scientist to come up with the "Joule-Thomson effect". Possibly his most well-known experiment is his "Paddle wheel" experiment, which led to an understanding of the conversion of energy from one form to another. His experimentations were not limited to simply those bounded in the areas of physics. Joule was an inventor as well - his accomplishments included the "arc" welding process and a displacement pump. As with every scientist, there is a list of Joule's failures. He attempted to design a motor that would provide infinite power but after many failed attempts realized it was unobtainable. - Joule's Law - - 1840 - Simply stated, Joule's Law relates how heat is dissipated by a resistor. Joule's Law states that the heat given off is equal to the square of the current multiplied by the resistance of the resistor and the amount of time passed. This law also relates itself to Thermodynamics, stating that "at constant temperature the internal energy of an ideal gas is independent of volume."1 - Paddle Wheel Experiment - - 1849 - This experiment involved the dropping of weights from a specific height; these weights would churn the water inside of the bucket and increase the overall temperature of the water slightly. This relationship served as the foundation to the First Law of Thermodynamics: - Joule-Thomson Effect - Although relatively easy to grasp for anyone in Physics, this discovery was key in understanding the relationships between pressure of gas and its temperature. The Joule-Thomson Effect shows that an insulated gas will lower its temperature as the pressure is decreased without doing any work.

Black Body Radiation and Ultraviolet Catastrophe

The book entitled Black Body Radiation and the Ultraviolet Catastrophe written by Jeff Brown tells about the story of a fifteen year old science genius in the name of Augustus who was granted with the power to travel to another dimension, time, or space by a mysterious being. Using his power, he traveled across different dimensions, time, and space of his existence. He had learned a lot from the journey and other people he met.The journey, indeed, let him realize his self-existence and learn some life lesson taught to him by some friends and other beings he had met, along them are his real parents that are the exact opposite of he had in earth. This story of Mr. Brown offers many things to ponder upon such as issues we encounter everyday that result to big changes in our lives, values that modern matters need understanding and lessons that are applicable to life; that real happiness does not come from material things and that big surprises comes in small packages.The work of Mr. Brow n is certainly heart-whelming and enriching for having that sense of purpose we have in life, even though the present of the omnipresent narrator sometimes provide his own musings in between the parts of the story. Augustus, the main protagonist in the story, is a son of a wealthy family. He always wanted to be on top of the honor list. Surprisingly, though he was a science genius, he was always too shy to look after some girls. Also, despite all the material wealth he possessed, he never seemed to be contented at all.He had this sense of wanting something or someone that would complete his existence here on earth. In the beginning of the story, the narrator illustrates this fact with the incident wherein he went out with his bike and before he walks out the door; his actions remained unnoticed by both his parents. In this scene, Augustus had this great pang on his insides; he had the feeling that his parents would not want him to stay and be safe in the house. The fact that Augustu s is the sole child, he always seeks a moment wherein his existence is needed with whom he could protect.It is stated in the first part of the story, â€Å"He approached it like he would his sister about to bite into the last piece of cake, that is, if he had one – a sister that is† that would somehow agree to the idea that he do want a sister and maybe, it is because of his parents’ jobs that caused them of not having a child, a sister for Augustus. In his journey, we could observe that as the story progresses, he found things that taught him to be a different Augustus than before.His imaginations, although as wild as anyone could have, eventually came to life and with this, he manage to think only the positive things he could. That could be the reason why he had met his real parents in an unreal world where he was hoping to find the different parents, the one he desired to have in the real world. It had been evident in the story that his parents do not care fo r him in his development as a person except for matters involving his performance in school or when they have to attend to Church festivities (Easter and Christmas).It was his parents from the other world that taught him the biggest blessing that he had and that is about what happiness really means and how to keep a relationship as sturdy and long as he could. Augustus’ character sought and found the main guiding principle of the story, that is, â€Å"without happiness, life is not worth living. † Aside from this principle, he had also learned several other life-long lessons which he applied later in his life. Augustus’ character is a representation of the many unhappy souls seeking something that would make him feel complete despite the material advantages he had.He started dealing with the difficulties brought about by the journey. Those difficulties stand for the modern issues some of us are facing today. His expedition to the other world could also mean for the changes we are having in life. His journey showed how he had manage to make decisions on his own in relation to his crossing to manhood and how he administer to find those things that would give him happiness. Augustus was gathering enough courage to find his life and the other characters he met helped him in this matter.He had learned to find his life’s worth and appreciated it and the virtues it offered to him. Augustus learned to stand by his faith. He experienced loving and being loved in return through the daughter of the Queen. His spiritual quest had earned him to value love, life and religion as well. At the end of the journey, although it seemed that the story is intriguing because of the bias attempts of the omnipresent narrator to convey his ideas within the text, Augustus is entrusted to portray a very strong character since the beginning of the story that he managed to maintain throughout the narrative.Being a reader, one should have managed to put himself in Augustus’ shoes and understand why he could well stand for any one of us. The maturity and self satisfaction he had receive from that high anticipated trip did not die in vain after the journey. The author had excellently dealt with changing Augustus’s and the readers’ life in a unique way shown in this book. Reference: Brown, J. (2007). Black Body Radiation and Ultraviolet Catastrophe. Lulu. com

Four Year Colleges vs. Community Colleges Essay

Why does Breakthrough emphasize four year colleges and universities? Should Breakthrough programs steer students to use community colleges as â€Å"stepping stones† toward bachelor’s degrees? Would community colleges be cheaper for students? Does it matter where students start their post†secondary educations, as long as they end up with bachelor’s degrees? It is true that once students have their bachelor’s degrees, it makes little difference, in terms of earnings potential and job prospects, what path they took to get there. However, the likelihood of earning a bachelor’s degree is significantly reduced if a student starts her post†secondary education at a community college, and the amount of time it takes to complete a bachelor’s degree (and potentially, the amount of loans a student accrues) is greatly increased. Additionally, research shows that the kinds of students Breakthrough serves—low†income, minority, first generation—are less likely to transfer from community colleges to four†year colleges and earn bachelor’s degrees. Therefore, the research supports the fact that students are more likely to complete bachelor’s degrees if they start their post† secondary educations at four†year colleges or universities. Is community college more cost-effective? Without factoring in financial aid, the average tuition and fees at community college is less than half of the average tuition and fees at a public four†year institution and 1/10th of the tuition and fees at a private four year institution. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the average annual tuition and fees in 2006†07 was: †¢ $2,017 †in†state student attending a community college †¢ $5,685 † full†time, in†state student at a public four year college or university †¢ $20,492 † full time student at a private four year college and university However, while the tuition and fees at community colleges are significantly less, without knowing a student’s financial aid package at a four year institution, it is difficult to determine the relative cost† effectiveness. Additionally, considering the amount of time it takes students who begin in community college to complete their bachelor’s degrees, it is unclear how much cost savings there is in the end. Does it take longer for students to complete bachelor’s degrees if they start at community colleges? On average, it takes students 1 ½Ã¢â‚¬ 2 years longer to complete bachelor’s degrees if they begin at community colleges than if they begin at four†year colleges. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the average time it takes to complete a bachelor’s degree is: †¢ 71 months for students who begin at 2†year colleges †¢ 55 months for students who begin at four year public colleges †¢ 50 months for students who begin at four year private colleges Is there a difference in the earnings of community college graduates and graduates of four†year institutions? If community college students do manage to transfer quickly and graduate from four†year colleges, there is little evidence to show that there are significant earning differentials between students who start at community colleges and students who start at four†year colleges (Kane and Rouse, 1995; Hilmer, 2000). The problem is that many community college students do not quickly transfer into four† year colleges nor do they ultimately complete their bachelor’s degrees. For those individuals who start at community colleges and don’t transfer to four†year institutions, there are repercussions in terms of their earnings potential. The average annual median income for adults who have associate’s degrees is approximately $13,000 less per year than adults who have bachelor’s degrees ($32,900 vs. $45,700), or $500,000 less in estimated lifetime earnings (U.S. Department of Labor, 2002). If the intention is to change the economic trajectory of Breakthrough students (i.e., end the cycle of poverty), then having Breakthrough students begin their post†secondary educations at four†year colleges is the best way to ensure they complete their bachelor’s degrees. Is there a difference in the attrition rates of students at community colleges vs. students at four†year colleges? The attrition rate for students at community colleges, even those students who have an explicit intent to pursue bachelor’s degrees, is far greater than the attrition rate of students at four year colleges. In 2006: †¢ 39% of students at community colleges who intended to pursue bachelor’s degrees left school without completing a degree or certificate program †¢ 17% of students at four year public colleges left school without completing a degree †¢ 16% of students at four year private colleges left school without completing a degree (National Center for Education Statistics, 2008 Special Analysis of Community College data)