Sharing knowledge is at the heart of our mission. Explore Ascendium’s growing library of publications that examine the complex challenges facing postsecondary learners, and how we’re helping our partners address them.
This overview of one of Ascendium’s funding focus area explores Ascendium’s investment priorities supporting leadership development and student success, and the desired outcomes of that support.
This overview of Ascendium's education philanthropy details our strategic approach to philanthropy: how, where and what we fund, our four focus areas and our belief in the power of education for upward social mobility.
Caring Campus Guide Two: Supporting the Professional Staff
May 2020
This Institute for Evidence-Based Change (IEBC) resource focuses on strategies for keeping staff informed of their college’s policies, practices and other updates. This work is part of two multi-year grants from Ascendium in support of IEBC’s Caring Campus programming.
Providing Student Support Services in Extraordinary Times: A Caring Campus Approach
May 2020
This well-attended webinar from the Institute for Evidence-Based Change (IEBC) explores how colleges can engage students and best connect with them in a virtual environment. Ascendium supported this webinar as part of IEBC’s Caring Campus programming.
2019 Education Philanthropy Report: A Sharper Focus
April 2020
2019 was not only our first full year under the Ascendium name, we literally sharpened our focus to four areas: removing structural barriers, postsecondary education in prison, rural education and workforce training, and streamlining transitions.
Students who take summer courses can potentially speed up the time it takes them to graduate. This guide helps college administrators and staff members implement two interventions designed to increase summer enrollment rates.
Engaging Adjunct Faculty in the Student Success Movement: A Practitioner's Guide
February 2020
This guide is designed to support the work of institutional cross-functional teams charged with strengthening adjunct faculty professional learning and institutional engagement.
OER at Scale: The Academic and Economic Outcomes of Achieving the Dream's OER Degree Initiative
February 2020
The research and evaluation of Achieving the Dream’s Open Education Resources (OER) Degree Initiative offers an important demonstration of the opportunity, the task, and the challenges of a systemic approach.
Increasing Community College Graduation Rates with a Proven Model: Three-Year Results from ASAP Ohio
January 2020
This Ascendium-sponsored report reviews impressive results from the program which provides students with up to three years of supports to address multiple barriers to student success.
Increasing Student Success in Developmental Mathematics
November 2019
To learn which students are not well-served by existing gateway math developmental educational reforms, we enlisted the NAS to help develop a research agenda and areas for future research over the next five years.
Ascendium committed $1 million to support MDRC's The Finish Line: Graduation by Design project, which explores student behaviors, college policies and institutional practices that prevent students from completing the programs they start.
College Promise programs make higher education more accessible by covering tuition, without typically addressing nonfinancial barriers. The MDRC College Promise Success Initiative enables more colleges to supplement their CP programs with student supports.