Aligning Employment and Education Systems for the Success of Low-Income Working Adult Learners: The Achieve Your Degree Program
Validation
The RAND Corporation|$647,100|10/2022 - 9/2025
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.
Scaling IT Support and Data Analytics Certificate Programming for Learners from Low-Income Backgrounds
Scaling
Merit America|$10,000,000|9/2022 - 8/2025
This grant supports Merit America in its goal to help 20,000 learners move from low-wage jobs to in-demand technology careers over the next three years. This investment will enable Merit America to scale their operations and leverage up to $45 million in funding from the $100 million Google Career Certificates Fund.
Enhancing and Expanding the Transfer Explorer Tool
Scaling
Ithaka Harbors Inc|$1,716,350|9/2022 - 8/2025
This grant supports Ithaka in enhancing and expanding the Transfer Explorer tool so that more transfer students have prior credits applied to a four-year degree, leading to reduced cost, reduced time-to-degree and a greater chance of completion.
Exploring TRIO's Capacity to Provide Career Development to Low-Income Students
Exploration
Council for Opportunity in Education|$748,000|2/2023 - 5/2025
This grant supports the Pell Institute, the research arm of the Council for Opportunity in Education, in exploring the capacity for federally-funded TRIO programs to provide more robust career development and support services to the low-income college students they serve. This study is the first to explore opportunities to leverage TRIO programs in service of post-college career outcomes.
Building a National Apprenticeship Intermediary Infrastructure
Exploration
Apprenticeships for America Inc|$500,000|2/2023 - 1/2025
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.
Examining Faculty Decision-Making in Course Equivalency and Transfer
Validation
MDRC|$1,122,000|12/2021 - 12/2024
This grant supports MDRC in assessing faculty behavior and motivations related to course equivalency decisions, a key bottleneck in the transfer process. In partnership with the National Association of System Heads and UC Berkeley, MDRC will conduct research and analysis of faculty's role in transfer articulation processes and explore system-level policy and practice considerations which may support more effective faculty engagement.
Connected Pathways for Tribal Colleges and Universities
Exploration
Wakiya Foundation Inc|$750,000|10/2022 - 9/2024
This grant supports the Wakiya Foundation in piloting the development of new, career-aligned bachelor’s degree programs at three tribal colleges in Montana. In partnership with the tribal college leaders and Western Governors University (WGU), Wakiya Foundation will lead a process of using labor market data to identify in-demand jobs for which no postsecondary education programs currently exist for tribal learners, and to fill those gaps through offerings delivered jointly by the tribal colleges and WGU.
STEM Transfer Partnerships
Exploration
University of Washington|$1,173,375|9/2021 - 8/2024
This grant supports the University of Washington in implementing a statewide consortium of institutional partnerships to increase successful transfer for low-income learners in STEM programs. Relying on the evidence-based framework for transfer partnerships developed by the institution's Community College Research Initiatives, this project endeavors to institutionalize collaborative partnerships at the departmental level, leading to long-term structural improvements in transfer policy and practice.
Actualizing Community Vibrancy Metrics
Exploration
Achieving the Dream Inc|$1,244,600|12/2022 - 5/2024
This grant supports Achieving the Dream (ATD) in helping its member colleges collect and use learner- and community-level data to drive college-wide reform. ATD will pilot the use of its new Community Vibrancy metrics framework with 15 colleges, learning how the metrics can be applied to drive change and produce tools and a training curriculum to support broader adoption across ATD’s 300+ member institutions.
Community College Growth Engine Fund Expansion
Exploration
Education Design Lab|$995,900|10/2021 - 3/2024
This grant supports Education Design Lab (The Lab) in deploying the Community College Growth Engine Fund with two community college systems. The Lab will support the design and pilot of employer-validated micro-pathways to connect low-income learners to economic mobility.
