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.
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.
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.
This report details a holistic approach to emergency aid based on Ascendium-supported emergency grants, an intervention designed to help students get through unexpected financial crises and stay on track to complete their program.
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.
Equity and Excellence in Practice: A Guide For Higher Education in Prison
November 2019
Lumina Foundation supported the Prison University Project and The Alliance for Higher Education in Prison to document key characteristics of high-quality prison higher education programs for stakeholders.
Ascendium partnered with Equal Measure to fund the development of better tools for emergency grant decision-makers to ask the right questions to get at the root cause of each student's personal financial crisis.
A practical guide to setting a vision and key practices for talent development and economic mobility, balancing the needs of students and employers to advance the overall prosperity of their regions, from the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program.
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.