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EDUCATION PHILANTHROPY DIVISION OF ASCENDIUM EDUCATION GROUP

Resource Library

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.

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Landscape of Higher Ed

The Landscape of Higher Education in Prison 2019-2020

December 2021
This report from the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison, partially funded by Ascendium, is the second annual data report on the Annual Survey of Higher Education in Prison Programs. It is the basis for the National Directory of Higher Education in Prison Programs. The Directory serves as a comprehensive resource for people seeking information about college in prison programs. It helps the field answer key questions about these programs and is a point of reference for advocates working to expand access to postsecondary education in prison.
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National Directory of Higher Ed

National Directory of Higher Education in Prison Programs

December 2021
Ascendium co-funded this interactive directory from the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison that collects descriptive data to help the field answer key questions about postsecondary education in prison (PEP) programs. The Directory includes statistics about PEP programs (by region or state); facility location and participating academic institutions; and a list view of all programs. With data collected from annual surveys on postsecondary education prison programs, the Directory now includes data from the 2019-2020 academic year.
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Who Is First Gen

Who Is a First-Generation Student?

December 2021
This report from The Chronicle of Higher Education shares information about first-generation students, why supporting them is important, the challenges they face and how colleges can better support them. This is part of a yearlong effort to explore the challenges institutions face today and raise up the successful and innovative approaches needed to maintain progress in enrolling, retaining and graduating students. Ascendium supports The Chronicle of Higher Education’s initiative to guide institutions to make actionable changes that will remove barriers students face today and prioritize student success.
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Rural Matters

Building Transfer and Career Pathways with Erica Orians and Lia Wetzstein (Part VII)

November 2021
Building transfer and career pathways for rural learners is a key issue for rural communities. The seventh in an eight-part podcast series from Rural Matters, sponsored by Ascendium, features discussions with two experts. This episode covers a range of topics from important issues in transferring between colleges, lessons learned from the COVID-19 health crisis, a STEM transfer partnership project and ideas on improving rural student transfer success.
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CCRC oh the places

Guided Pathways Workshop Series: Goal-Oriented Program Onboarding Redesign

November 2021
The Community College Research Center produced this workshop curriculum and support material for colleges that have not been well served by existing technical assistance providers in the guided pathways reform movement. Funded by Ascendium’s Guided Pathways What and How To Educational Series grant, the suite of materials includes a facilitator’s guide and a customizable presentation, one-page overview, samples and activities.
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MappingCommCollegeBacc

Mapping the Community College Baccalaureate

November 2021
New America is creating the first national database on Community College Baccalaureate (CCB) programs. Partially funded by Ascendium, this database will help policymakers and institutional leaders better understand CCBs. This brief provides data visualization to offer a first step towards documenting the types of degrees, program areas and geographic concentration of CCB programs.
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Rural Matters

Postsecondary Partnerships in Rural America with Sheila Martin, Dakota Pawlicki, and Gretchen Schmidt (Part VI)

November 2021
This episode is the sixth in an eight-part podcast series from Rural Matters and sponsored by Ascendium. It features discussions with three expert guests on the challenges and opportunities involved in building and sustaining postsecondary partnerships in rural America.
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MCTA

Midwest Credential Transparency Alliance Pathways Action Team: A Brief

October 2021
The Midwest Credential Transparency Alliance Pathways Action Team, with funding from Ascendium, has been studying how career pathways can be improved through increased accessibility of credential information. The team shared their assessment of the current pathways in a new brief, which also lays out their plans to continue to support pathways for learners from low-income backgrounds in the Midwest.
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bucking the trend

Bucking the Trend: How Some Institutions Grew Their Transfer Enrollment Amid a Pandemic

October 2021
The National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) Research Center found that close to 200,000 fewer students transferred between colleges in the 2020-21 academic year than in the previous year. However, not all colleges saw steep declines in transfer enrollment. With funding from Ascendium and ECMC Foundation, the NSC Research Center continues to explore the data, with this guest authored report offering insights into how some colleges were actually able to grow their transfer enrollment in 2020-21.
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DWD2

Degrees When Due Case Study: Anoka-Ramsey Community College

October 2021
Anoka-Ramsey Community College is re-engaging adult learners with some college, but no degree and creating support programs to help learners of all ages achieve their educational goals. As a member of the first Institute of Higher Education Policy’s Degrees When Due cohort, the college’s experiences are highlighted in a new case study – the second in a series of three supported in part by Ascendium.
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SSTF Resource Library

Strong Start to Finish Knowledge Center

October 2021
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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paths to success

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

October 2021
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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