All Grants

This grant supports the Tennessee Board of Regents in using insights from prior Ascendium-funded research to redesign the experience of adults with some college but no degree who reconnect with college. Designed as a randomized control trial, the project will evaluate how the redesign of the reconnecting semester for adults returning to community college impacts persistence, completion and time to degree.

This grant supports The RAND Corporation in studying the design and outcomes of Ivy Tech Community College's statewide Achieve Your Degree program, which helps working learners earn skills needed to advance in their jobs through employer tuition assistance and dedicated academic and non-academic supports.

This grant supports MDRC in partnering with Ascendium to design a grantmaking initiative that will build next-generation evidence on sectoral training programs. The initiative will identify the conditions and mechanisms needed to deliver and scale effective programs.

This grant supports the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce in mapping economic opportunity by identifying where good jobs exist in urban and rural regions and establishing the most reliable educational and training pathways to those jobs. This analysis will expand on existing research by contextualizing opportunities to locale and enabling education and workforce providers to align programs with existing and projected labor demand.

This grant supports The RAND Corporation in examining stackable credential pipelines in two states to determine whether learners from low-income backgrounds benefit from stackable credentials, whether they face barriers in accessing these pathways and which institutional and system level policies and programs strengthen equity. The goal is to inform efforts within the two states and nationally to build effective and equitable stackable credential pipelines for learners from low-income backgrounds.

This grant supports the Urban Institute in assessing which workforce-aligned approaches of postsecondary education institutions are most critical for the success of learners from low-income backgrounds in the labor market. The Urban Institute will conduct a multi-faceted research project, including a return on investment analysis that will ultimately provide information on promising and effective programs, policies, resources and strategies that support success for learners.

This grant supports the Institute for Higher Education Policy in conducting the impact research component of the Degrees When Due initiative, a national effort to advance degree reclamation for the “some-college, no-degree” population. This research includes an examination of current degree reclamation strategies and student-level postsecondary and employment outcome data.

This grant supports DVP-Praxis in evaluating the Military Credentialing Advancement Initiative-Pathways Project, an initiative of Lumina Foundation. The Pathways Project will support the creation of new pathways between military occupational competencies and high-quality civilian credentials, and the formative evaluation will highlight learnings from the pilot sites to inform the field and encourage broader recognition of military training and experience.

This grant supports Next Gen Sector Partnerships in creating a formal analysis of the impact of the more than 80 Next Gen Sector Partnerships currently operating nationwide. The analysis will inform the codification of best practices and the development of training materials for use in the expansion of rural public and private partner networks working toward regional vitality and expanded opportunity.

This grant supports the Tennessee Board of Regents - The College System of Tennessee in researching pathways to success for adult students with some college credit but no degree. This project will identify the various supports necessary to increase success for adults who return to college.