Resource Library

Shasta College is a member of the first cohort of the Institute of Higher Education Policy’s Degrees When Due initiative, which supports community colleges in assisting learners with some college, but no degree. Insights from this community college are highlighted in this case study, the first of three supported in part by Ascendium.

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.

This episode is the fifth in an eight-part podcast series from Rural Matters and sponsored by Ascendium. It features discussion on a new rural postsecondary education research agenda with program officers from Ascendium, along with representatives from Sova and the National Rural Education Association (NREA).

This Tackling Transfer resource includes tips and tools for postsecondary leaders who want to foster better and more strategic attention to incentives that result in better and more equitable outcomes for transfer students. The Tackling Transfer project is a partnership between the Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program, HCM Strategists and Sova, and received grant co-funding from Ascendium.

This report provides information and data guides to transfer partners that are interested in developing data-sharing routines in service of their larger transfer student success and equity strategies. It was published through the Tackling Transfer project, a partnership between the Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program, HCM Strategists and Sova, with co-funding support from Ascendium.

This tool, developed through the Tackling Transfer initiative, provides data to college leaders as they assess the feasibility and impact of increasing transfer student enrollment from specific community colleges. It’s just one resource created from the co-funded initiative, which is a partnership between the Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program, HCM Strategists and Sova.

This guide provides an overview of core elements of short-term improvement cycles that aim to accelerate problem-solving for transfer student success. It was created as part of the Tackling Transfer project, a partnership between Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program, HCM Strategists and Sova, with co-funding support from Ascendium.

This Ascendium-supported report outlines how the Community College Research Center's thinking has evolved in the six years since it published Redesigning America’s Community Colleges, an influential book on guided pathways. Since that time, the center has studied the adoption, implementation costs and effects of guided pathways at more than 100 institutions. The report offers high-level recommendations, including increased use of experience-based learning, early advising tied to academic majors and customized onboarding paths for older adults returning to school.

The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center released the fifth of a nine-part report series that provides institutions and researchers with near real-time data on how the COVID-19 health crisis is impacting transfer students. This report, co-funded by Ascendium and ECMC Foundation, shows that higher education lost about 191,500 transfer students, nearly three times last year’s losses, with racial and ethnic disparities widening in the number of students who transferred from two- to four-year institutions.

This research brief is one of several co-funded by Ascendium and produced through the Tackling Transfer initiative, a partnership between the Aspen Insitute’s College Excellence Program, HCM Strategists and Sova. It outlines the elements of a transfer-receptive campus culture and clarifies ways that transfer student success and the faculty values of collegiality, fairness and academic excellence can align. Research is based on analysis of support strategies for transfer students at The Ohio State University’s Columbus campus.

This report is one of several funded in part by Ascendium and produced through the Tackling Transfer initiative, a partnership between the Aspen Institute, HCM Strategists and Sova. It highlights the unique needs of rural transfer students and profiles three emerging practices that community colleges can use to support rural students through different transfer pathways to earning a bachelor’s degree.

This report is one of several funded in part by Ascendium and produced through the Aspen Institute’s Tackling Transfer initiative. It shines a light on Metropolitan State University for prioritizing transfer student success as part of their core business and mission. This report aims to provide a valuable set of lessons for postsecondary education institutions everywhere to prioritize transfer student success, create clear program pathways and provide tailored advising for transfer students.