All Grants

This grant supports Coleridge Initiative in developing and launching a data use challenge and call for proposals to solicit data-driven ideas that inform education and workforce transitions. Ascendium will select individual data challenge projects to support from a set of proposals submitted by Coleridge Initiative during the grant period. The selected projects will link education and workforce data, provide states the relevant data analysis capacity to answer critical questions about student progression and inform evidence-based policies and practices that support learners from low-income backgrounds.

This grant supports the Association of Chambers of Commerce Executives Foundation in working with up to 12 rural chambers of commerce to learn how to bring local community partners together to provide rural learners and workers from low-income backgrounds with the training needed to access well-paying, high-demand jobs.

This grant supports Achieving the Dream in partnering with Jobs for the Future to help nine community colleges across three states identify and implement practices and policies that drive adult learner success. Complementary capacity building for state system offices will help ensure alignment of policy to effective practice and support cross-state learning.

This grant supports a cohort of organizations in designing, implementing and/or expanding high-quality postsecondary education or workforce training leading to good jobs for immigrants, migrants and refugees from low-income backgrounds in rural communities. Selected organizations will also join a learning community focused on identifying promising strategies and addressing barriers to help strengthen outcomes.

This grant supports the Education Writers Association in increasing the quality and volume of national postsecondary education media coverage by hosting a national seminar, developing online resources, and providing micro-fellowships to new journalists working on stories that highlight solutions to support learners from low-income backgrounds.

This grant supports Apprenticeships for America in creating the first national network of apprenticeship intermediaries in the United States and developing research to support the role of intermediaries with the goal of expanding apprenticeship opportunities nationwide.

This grant supports Impact! Communications, Inc. in producing seven podcast episodes, as part of their Rural Impact podcast series, focused on postsecondary education and workforce training access and success for rural adults.

This grant supports the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Teachers College, Columbia University in executing a project designed to understand the costs of implementing evidence-based practices to support postsecondary success for learners from low-income backgrounds and students of color at two-year institutions. CCRC will use insights from the study to provide guidance to institutional leaders and state and system policymakers for advancing adequate and equitable funding strategies.

This grant supports The RAND Corporation in partnering with Dallas College to address early student attrition. The partners will examine institutional data, student experiences and campus-level practices to share insights with the field about students who leave prior to colleges' official enrollment count and how community colleges can help retain them.

This grant supports Vera Institute of Justice in providing technical assistance, training and advising to new and existing Second Chance Pell college sites and their state corrections system partners. The goal of these activities is to ensure the implementation of high-quality postsecondary education in prison and to help the field prepare for the full restoration of Pell Grants for incarcerated learners on July 1, 2023.