Resource Library

The Understanding the Landscape of Higher Education Prison Survey was designed as a follow-up to the 2020 Annual Survey of Higher Education in Prison Programs. The Landscape Survey updates program statistics, including demographics, funding, technology and evaluation. With support from Ascendium, this survey was designed and distributed by the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison, partnered with the Research Collaborative for Higher Education in Prison at the University of Utah and the University of California Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy.

This report is one of several funded in part by Ascendium and produced through the Tackling Transfer initiative, a partnership between the Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program, HCM Strategists and Sova. It shares lessons and reflections from higher education system leaders in Minnesota, Texas and Virginia from their work to improve transfer student success and close equity gaps as part of the national Tackling Transfer project. Through sharing transfer data and setting goal benchmarks, these leaders hope to inspire and inform other state-level efforts to set and monitor transfer student goals.

Ascendium supported the Institute for Evidence-Based Change to produce a series of guides on Caring Campus, a holistic approach to improving a sense of student belonging and connection on campus with the goal of increasing student success. This third guide details ways professional staff and others can incorporate concepts of racial equity, specifically the behavioral commitments, into the Caring Campus approach.

This episode is the fourth in an eight-part podcast series from Rural Matters on rural postsecondary education and workforce development. Sponsored by Ascendium, this episode features a panel discussing the digital rural economy. Each guest shares insights on a range of topics, including working with postsecondary institutions to offer digital opportunities, along with creating local digital communities and using micro-credentials to open up opportunities for rural learners to earn and verify their skills.

The global health crisis presented extraordinary challenges to Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) and made inequities in funding and technological infrastructure more visible. TCUs serve some of the most rural students and communities in the U.S., and inequities in funding and technological infrastructure has threated the success of those students. This brief, published by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) and funded in part by Ascendium, describes these challenges, how TCUs responded and their request for support to promote the success of students.

With funding support from Ascendium, The Graduate! Network has continued to expand their predictive analytics model to better understand the patterns and various impacts that influence a returning adult learner’s progression to a credential. This report explores three challenges along their postsecondary education odyssey: affording a college degree, navigating mid-journey changes and persevering as a returning student.

Federal Student Aid is an office of the U.S. Department of Education. Their website provides information to help learners better understand what financial aid is, what types of financial aid are available based on eligibility, how to apply for financial aid and how to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

Supported by the Institute of Education Sciences and National Center for Educational Statistics, both located within the U.S. Department of Education, this resource allows learners to compare colleges across the U.S. side by side. Learners can enter information and gain insights to assist them in finding the right college.

This toolkit supports college faculty, administrators and advisors in ensuring that corequisite mathematics classes provide the support students need to be successful, particularly those who are students of color, first-generation and from low-income communities. It also provides nationally agreed-upon design principles for math corequisites, as well as tools and resources to make them actionable. It’s part of the Strong Start to Finish initiative led by Education Commission of the States and supported by Ascendium, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The Kresge Foundation.

The Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) – The College System of Tennessee recently released Coursetaking and Success for Returning Adult Students at Community Colleges. This is the third in a series of working papers that are part of TBR’s Pathways to Success for Students with Some College, No Degree initiative developed with support from Ascendium. This report addresses which courses reconnecting adults take, course success rates for reconnectors in their first term back and how course success impacts reconnectors' persistence and graduation.

This Strong Start to Finish (SSTF) toolkit aims to build capacity for large-scale, equity-grounded, student-focused change by providing tested change leadership strategies for mid-level campus managers. SSTF is led by Education Commission of the States and supported by Ascendium, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The Kresge Foundation.

The Tackling Transfer Policy Advisory Board has partnered with HCM Strategists, Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program and Sova Solutions to develop policy recommendations. These recommendations span three interrelated areas: harnessing data for transformational change, maximizing credit applicability and recognition of learning and advancing strategic finance and impactful student aid. Ascendium supports the Aspen Institute's transfer efforts through our focus area to streamline key learner transitions.