How We See the Problem
Today’s learners often aren’t well served by the educational systems that were built years ago for more traditional students. Now students are often older, more diverse, working one or more jobs, raising families, and struggling to make ends meet.
Colleges and universities are complex, and often don’t have a student-centric approach to course offerings or availability, advising and other institutional policies. The problem shows in the equity gaps in completion rates: just 11% of low-income students graduate with a bachelor’s degree. Almost 6 times as many students — 58% overall — from higher-income households graduate.
Our Three Investment Priorities
Grants to Remove Structural Barriers to Success
Launching Postsecondary State Impact Projects
Exploration
This grant supports Jobs for the Future (JFF) in working with postsecondary system leaders in Washington and North Carolina to implement comprehensive statewide student success reforms. With JFF’s support, system leaders in North Carolina will develop statewide strategies for rural education and training aligned to future workforce needs. System leaders in Washington will design a statewide student advising platform to improve accountability and compliance with state requirements for community colleges.
Curricular Analytics
Exploration
This grant supports the Association for Undergraduate Education at Research Universities, hosted at Colorado State University, in validating the relationship between curricular structure and equitable student outcomes. A network of national senior leaders will collaborate to develop and test strategies for using their institutional data to engage faculty in revising university curriculum.
Creating a National Movement for Emergency Aid
Scaling
This grant supports Scholarship America in launching a national campaign communicating the impact of emergency aid for learners from low-income backgrounds in an effort to broaden the donor base for emergency aid nationwide.
Examining Student Loss at Community Colleges
Exploration
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.
Site-Specific Evaluation of Academic Recovery Innovations
Validation
This grant supports Arizona State University Foundation for a New American University in evaluating a campus-level intervention (“academy recovery model”) targeting students who fail in critical courses. This institution-level evaluation will provide insights into localized implementation and create the conditions for a potential future evaluation to determine the interventions’ impact on student outcomes.
Minnesota Math Pathways
Scaling
This grant supports Minnesota State Colleges & Universities in replacing pre-requisite remediation with co-requisite options and ensuring all students enter a mathematics pathway relevant to their program of study. These reforms are designed to facilitate transfer and reduce disparities in low-income and minoritized student completion outcomes.
Site-Specific Evaluation of Academic Recovery Innovations
Validation
This grant supports The Regents of the University of California, on behalf of its Riverside campus, in evaluating a campus-level intervention (“academy recovery model”) targeting students who fail in critical courses. This institution-level evaluation will provide insights into localized implementation and create the conditions for a potential future evaluation to determine the interventions’ impact on student outcomes.
Site-Specific Evaluation of Academic Recovery Innovations
Validation
This grant supports University of Utah in evaluating a campus-level intervention (“academy recovery model”) targeting students who fail in critical courses. This institution-level evaluation will provide insights into localized implementation and create the conditions for a potential future evaluation to determine the interventions’ impact on student outcomes.
Site-Specific Evaluation of Academic Recovery Innovations
Validation
This grant supports The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois in evaluating a campus-level intervention (“academy recovery model”) targeting students who fail critical courses. This institution-level evaluation will provide insights into localized implementation and create the conditions for a potential future evaluation to determine the interventions’ impact on student outcomes.
Paving the Way to Equitable, Adequate and Effective Community College Funding
Validation
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.
