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EDUCATION PHILANTHROPY DIVISION OF ASCENDIUM EDUCATION GROUP

Remove Structural Barriers to Success

Our philanthropy focuses on reducing or eliminating institutional and systemic barriers for underrepresented postsecondary education learners so they can achieve their academic and career goals.

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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.

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Ascendium's Approach

An investment priority to…

Create conditions for institutional and system readiness for learner success reforms

Means we support…

  • Identifying misaligned policies and practices that reduce the efficacy of learner success reforms
  • Developing learner-centered postsecondary leaders in roles across institutions and systems

Which will lead to…

  • Networks of institutions and systems achieving more equitable learner outcomes
  • Networks and systems better understanding the financial impacts of learner success reforms
  • Leadership development that contributes to equitable student success

An investment priority to…

Support the development and evaluation of promising approaches and interventions to increase completion rates and decrease time to degree

Means we support…

  • Seeding the exploration of innovative ideas
  • Conducting mixed methods evaluations to determine the efficacy and scalability of interventions

Which will lead to…

  • Creation of evidence supporting reforms that lead to more equitable learner outcomes
  • Stakeholders having a better understanding of what works to drive equitable learner outcomes

An investment priority to…

Support the widespread adoption of evidence-based institutional and system policies and practices that drive equitable student outcomes

Means we support…

  • Scaling effective practices that ensure leaners complete degrees or credentials without excess credits
  • Enhancing data infrastructure to maximize its use for decision making and information sharing

Which will lead to…

  • Institutions adopting developmental education reforms at scale
  • More learners enrolling in and completing gateway courses during their first year
  • Institutions prioritizing course availability and advising in a way that decreases time to degree and unnecessary credit accumulation

Grants to Remove Structural Barriers to Success

To learn about our approach to grantmaking (Exploration, Validation, Scaling), visit our How We Fund page.

2017-2019 College Completion Grant

Exploration
Northcentral Technical College|$181,449|1/2017 - 11/2019
This grant supports efforts at 14 two- and four-year colleges in Arkansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio and Wisconsin to identify students nearing completion but at-risk of dropping out and apply appropriate interventions to help them overcome their obstacles.

2017-2019 College Completion Grant

Exploration
Lorain County Community College|$106,540|1/2017 - 11/2019
This grant supports efforts at 14 two- and four-year colleges in Arkansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio and Wisconsin to identify students nearing completion but at-risk of dropping out and apply appropriate interventions to help them overcome their obstacles.

2017-2019 College Completion Grant

Exploration
North Central State College|$175,008|1/2017 - 11/2019
This grant supports efforts at 14 two- and four-year colleges in Arkansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio and Wisconsin to identify students nearing completion but at-risk of dropping out and apply appropriate interventions to help them overcome their obstacles.

2017-2019 College Completion Grant

Exploration
Kent State University-Kent|$200,000|1/2017 - 11/2019
This grant supports efforts at 14 two- and four-year colleges in Arkansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio and Wisconsin to identify students nearing completion but at-risk of dropping out and apply appropriate interventions to help them overcome their obstacles.

2017-2019 College Completion Grant

Exploration
Clark State Community College|$122,651|1/2017 - 11/2019
This grant supports efforts at 14 two- and four-year colleges in Arkansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio and Wisconsin to identify students nearing completion but at-risk of dropping out and apply appropriate interventions to help them overcome their obstacles.

2017-2019 College Completion Grant

Exploration
Alverno College|$199,600|1/2017 - 11/2019
This grant supports efforts at 14 two- and four-year colleges in Arkansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio and Wisconsin to identify students nearing completion but at-risk of dropping out and apply appropriate interventions to help them overcome their obstacles.

2017-2019 College Completion Grant

Exploration
Milwaukee Area Technical College|$200,000|1/2017 - 11/2019
This grant supports efforts at 14 two- and four-year colleges in Arkansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio and Wisconsin to identify students nearing completion but at-risk of dropping out and apply appropriate interventions to help them overcome their obstacles.

2017-2019 College Completion Grant

Exploration
Concordia University-Saint Paul|$178,412|1/2017 - 11/2019
This grant supports efforts at 14 two- and four-year colleges in Arkansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio and Wisconsin to identify students nearing completion but at-risk of dropping out and apply appropriate interventions to help them overcome their obstacles.


2017-2019 College Completion Grant

Exploration
North Dakota State University|$200,000|1/2017 - 11/2019
This grant supports efforts at 14 two- and four-year colleges in Arkansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio and Wisconsin to identify students nearing completion but at-risk of dropping out and apply appropriate interventions to help them overcome their obstacles.

Engaging Adjunct Faculty in the Student Success Movement

Validation
Achieving the Dream Inc|$696,000|3/2016 - 11/2019
This grant supports Achieving the Dream in helping colleges implement policies and practices to better engage part-time faculty in the student success agenda.
View All Ascendium Grants

Latest News

November 18, 2021

Ready for Pell Proposal Deadline Nov. 24, New CCRC Report on Guided Pathways and More

  • Ready for Pell Proposal Deadline is Nov. 24
  • New CCRC Report on Guided Pathways One of Several Ascendium-Supported Efforts on the Evidence-Informed Framework
  • Grant from Ascendium's Maintain Momentum Supports Community Colleges of Appalachia in New Rural Educators Academy
Read More
November 03, 2021

New CCRC Report on Guided Pathways One of Several Ascendium-Supported Efforts on the Evidence-Informed Framework

Too many learners from low-income backgrounds start community college and drop out, never completing a degree or credential. To reverse this pattern, institutions nationwide are adopting guided pathways reforms, which aim to improve student outcomes by redesigning programs and providing students with clearer pathways to a credential with labor market value. Ascendium continues to support guided pathways efforts, which are showing early promise in improving completion rates for learners from low-income backgrounds. Recent guided pathways efforts include a new report by Community College Research Center, informed by its six years of research and work with more than 100 institutions.

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Resources

Strong Start to Finish Knowledge Center

The Strong Start to Finish (SSTF) Knowledge Center is a clearinghouse of research and resources from those in the SSTF network, intended for all institutions and systems interested in implementing developmental education reforms. Resources can be searched by keyword, sorted by format and filtered by topic. SSTF is supported by Ascendium, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The Kresge Foundation.

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How Community Colleges Are Strengthening Guided Pathways to Ensure Students Are Learning

This report by the Association of American Colleges and Universities features narratives, best practices and recommendations from a two-year project to strengthen guided pathways implementation at 20 participating campuses. In this effort, funded in part by Ascendium, participants mapped academic paths and degree programs to student goals, helped students choose and stay on a degree path and built capacity to ensure students were learning.

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Sue
Cui

Senior Program Officer,
Remove Structural Barriers to Success

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