Blog
April 14, 2026
Making Credit Count
How Transparency Can Improve Transfer Outcomes
A new report from Ithaka S+R, Academic Momentum and Credit Mobility: Examining the Role of CUNY’s Transfer Explorer, explores how improving transparency around credit transfer can shape student outcomes. Drawing on administrative data from nearly 30,000 students across the CUNY system, the study offers new evidence on what it takes to support meaningful academic progress after transfer.
April 13, 2026
Measuring the Economic and Civic Value of the Humanities Workforce
Announcing a New Project
Today’s students increasingly see higher education as a vehicle to employment, and colleges and universities have a responsibility to ensure that graduates are well-positioned to meet their career goals. Too often, however, the measure of whether colleges are meeting that responsibility is reduced to a single number—students’ early career earnings. The reality is more complicated, and taking a broader, longer-term view is essential: outcomes like career adaptability, lifetime earnings, civic engagement, and even personal fulfillment all matter, too.
April 10, 2026
Strengthening Data Infrastructure for Higher Education in Prison in Mississippi
A New Report
Mississippi’s higher education in prison ecosystem is at an inflection point. Programs are expanding across the state, many programs are beginning to see their first graduates, and student demand continues to outpace available capacity. At the same time, federal requirements tied to Pell restoration have increased expectations for data collection, reporting, and accountability. In a new report, we explore how Mississippi is navigating this moment.
April 9, 2026
What Do Libraries Look for When Evaluating Relationships with Academic Publishers?
Today, we published an issue brief on the topic of the evolving relationship between research libraries and academic publishers. With this research, we wanted to better understand which qualities and practices library professionals consider most and least important when evaluating their relationships with academic publishers. At a time of significant budgetary constraints within academic libraries, what qualities rise to the top when deciding whether to begin or renew a publisher contract?…
April 8, 2026
From Cohort to Catalyst
At a Final Convening, the Holistic Credit Mobility Acceleration Cohort Celebrates Innovation, Accomplishments, and Connection
Earlier this year, Ithaka S+R hosted 40 members of the holistic credit mobility acceleration cohort in New York City for a final convening. Throughout 2025, cohort members worked with Ithaka S+R and Complete College America to identify and implement strategies to enhance credit mobility, creating a seamless path for students to transfer earned credits and ultimately achieve their educational goals.
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April 7, 2026
Understanding the Changing Terms of US–Sino Research Collaboration
Introducing a New Policy Tracker
Ithaka S+R is tracking federal policies in the United States that affect US–Sino academic collaboration as part of our Supporting International Values in the Research Enterprise project, funded by the Henry Luce Foundation. The tracker documents the developing rules, restrictions, and guidance that govern how scientific collaboration across borders can take place. Our aim for this tracker is to provide a resource from which university administrators, researchers, and advocates, can draw out broader patterns and develop coherent strategies…
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April 2, 2026
AI in Action
Announcing a New Cohort Project for Academic Libraries
Our new initiative, AI in Action, will bring together 15-20 academic libraries starting this May for a 12-month, hands-on cohort to explore the potential for integrating AI into their own processes. The goal is to produce actionable, shared insights that strengthen the sector’s collective capacity for innovation, while staying aligned with library values.
March 31, 2026
Scaling Up Academic Open Source Program Offices
A New Issue Brief on the System-Level OSPO Initatives at the University of California and University of Texas
Across the past several years, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has supported the foundation and growth of academic Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs) at 12 universities in the United States. OSPOs are units that support and coordinate open source software development and adoption. Ithaka S+R’s previous work has examined the successes and challenges of these Sloan-funded OSPOs in their early years. While these were each respectively based at a single academic institution, both the University of California (UC) and…
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March 30, 2026
AI in Research Administration at Emerging Research Institutions
An Issue Brief from NSF GRANTED Workshops
Research administration has grown increasingly complex over the past two decades, and the introduction of AI has only exacerbated this. Expanding regulatory requirements, shifting funding landscapes, rising numbers of proposals, and constrained staffing resources have made research administration more demanding. For emerging research institutions, these pressures compound existing structural challenges in building research operations capable of securing and sustaining funding. As generative AI tools have rapidly entered the market, accompanied by promises of increased efficiency, research offices at emerging research…
March 27, 2026
Evaluating the Student Emergency Grant Fund at CUNY
Announcing a New Project
In 2022, Ithaka S+R conducted a study on Georgia State University’s Panther Retention Grant program, a type of microgrant or emergency aid initiative designed to support students with immediate financial need. Through our evaluation, we found that receiving a grant reduced time to degree across student types, including for Pell recipients and students from underrepresented racial and ethnic minority groups. We also found that it reduced cumulative debt for most student groups, likely because recipients enrolled in…
March 26, 2026
Postsecondary Value & Public Trust
Introducing a New Program Area at Ithaka S+R
Building on a decade or more of research and practice, we recently formed a new program area, Postsecondary Value & Public Trust. This program advances the economic, social, and civic value of postsecondary education. We partner with state agencies, build networks of institutions, and collaborate with field leaders to improve affordability, strengthen workforce alignment, and maximize value, all key levers in rebuilding public trust in higher education.
March 26, 2026
Examining the Academic, Labor Market, and Economic Outcomes of Community College Bachelor’s Degrees
Announcing a New Project
Increasingly, a bachelor’s degree is required for career advancement and economic security. On average, individuals with a bachelor’s degree earn higher wages and have greater job stability than those with less education. Community colleges, which enroll over 40 percent of undergraduates, often serve as the starting point for students seeking a bachelor’s degree, particularly for students of color, low-income students, and adult learners. Yet, for many of these students, four-year institutions are inaccessible for a variety of…
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March 25, 2026
Open Source Research Software and Open Science
For decades, the Open Science movement—driven by both funder mandates and scholarly norms—has sought to make academic research in all disciplines accessible to everyone, both in and outside the academy. Yet while the academic research enterprise has made significant strides in building infrastructure to support open access publication, the sharing of research data, and other core aspects of Open Science, there is an additional area that has received less attention within academia: open source research software (OSRS). To begin to…
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March 24, 2026
Announcing the Library Partnership Development Framework
Across sectors, organizations are increasingly recognizing that no single institution can meet the full range of needs facing students and communities today. Effective partnerships, grounded in shared goals, clear roles, and sustained collaboration, are essential for addressing complex challenges like access to education, workforce development, digital inclusion, and basic needs support. Libraries offer a compelling example of how this work can take shape. Public and academic libraries often serve the same populations through different institutional structures. In both settings, libraries…
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March 12, 2026
Aligning State Dollars with Workforce Opportunity
What the Data (and Five States) Show
Much of the policy conversation about postsecondary-workforce alignment has focused on appropriations: how should state dollars be distributed across institutions, and can performance-based funding models incentivize credential production in priority fields? But state agencies also control a second major lever: student financial aid. Unlike appropriations, financial aid—and especially targeted aid—can influence students’ enrollment and program choices at the outset.
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March 11, 2026
Expanding Access. Improving Outcomes. Advancing Knowledge.
A Message from Ithaka S+R's New Managing Director
At Ithaka S+R, we work with leaders and policymakers to expand access to postsecondary education, improve student and workforce outcomes, and strengthen the systems that sustain scholarship and knowledge creation. We do this by providing strategic advice, conducting rigorous research, evaluating initiatives, and developing and sustaining nonprofit tools and services.
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March 5, 2026
Assessing Comprehensive Support for First-Generation Student Success
New Findings and a Dashboard from the Kessler Scholars Program Evaluation
First-generation college students bring remarkable determination and resilience to their pursuit of higher education. Yet they continue to face significant barriers to degree completion, including fewer financial resources, less academic preparation, and less information and guidance about how to navigate the higher education system. A growing evidence base suggests that comprehensive, cohort-based support programs that address these multifaceted barriers can meaningfully improve outcomes for these students. Today, we published a new issue brief and a…
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March 3, 2026
Incorporating Environmental Perspectives into AI Literacy
Announcing a New Mellon-Funded Project
The energy and material demands behind artificial intelligence (AI) technology raise serious questions about the environmental impacts of widespread AI adoption. Understanding these environmental-related consequences is an important component of what it means to be AI literate. Within the sphere of higher education, colleges and universities are launching initiatives to help students, faculty, and staff attain higher levels of AI literacy. Many AI literacy frameworks already call for competency in the societal and environmental impacts of AI technologies. However, tracking…
March 2, 2026
The Benefits of Institutional Debt Relief for Adult Learners
Three Years of Evidence from Northeast Ohio
For the 37 million adults in the US who have completed some college but do not have a degree or credential (SCNC), financial costs are one of the biggest barriers to returning. Institutional debt—unpaid balances that a student owes to their college or university after stopping out—is a specific challenge that many students with SCNC face. The Ohio College Comeback Compact took an innovative approach to re-enrollment by canceling up to $5,000 in institutional debt as students re-enrolled and made…
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February 23, 2026
Announcing the 2025 Art Museum Director Survey
Earlier today, we published a report detailing the findings from the third cycle of our Art Museum Director Survey. The latest findings offer a timely look into how art museum leaders’ priorities and strategies have shifted (or held steady) since both the 2022 cycle and the first cycle in 2020, when Ithaka S+R began tracking how these leaders’ priorities evolve as they guide their museums through economic, social, and environmental change. This project, in collaboration with the…
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