Topic: Access to higher education
Past Event
June 14, 2022
Webinar: Solving Stranded Credits and Institutional Debt
The Washington Student Achievement Council
On Tuesday, June 14, from 1:00 – 2:00 PDT, Martin Kurzweil will present on “Solving Standard Credits and Institutional Debt” during a webinar for the Washington Student Achievement Council. To register, visit the Council’s website. About the webinar Recent research by Ithaka S+R and others has revealed that more than 6.6 million students nationally owe debt on an unpaid balance to a previously attended college or university, with an average balance of $2,400. The vast majority of institutions withhold…
Blog Post
June 14, 2022
Looking Forward to ALA Annual 2022
A Banner Year for Librarians Serving Incarcerated Patrons
The American Library Association (ALA) will be holding its annual conference next week (June 23-28) in Washington DC, in person for the first time since 2019. The conference theme, “together again,” points to the critical importance of building and sustaining community, and I am especially excited to see that the conference schedule has multiple sessions that will provide opportunities for librarians who serve incarcerated people to connect and learn. Even in an increasingly censorius national…
Past Event
June 24, 2022
Library Services to the Justice Involved (LSJI) Roundtable
ITHAKA is proud to be sponsoring the Library Services to the Justice Involved Roundtable at the ALA Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. When: Friday, June 24, 2022 at 10:30am – 11:30am Where: Washington Convention Center, 152B Kurtis Tanaka (Ithaka S+R), Stacy Burnett (JSTOR Labs), and Anne Ray (Reveal Digital) will be in attendance. About the roundtable:…
Blog Post
June 6, 2022
Announcing a New Partnership with the Kessler Scholars Collaborative
First-generation students face unique challenges upon entering college. Compared to their peers whose families have a history of college attendance, these students are more likely to have additional responsibilities outside of the classroom, receive less financial support, and struggle more frequently with their sense of belonging at their institutions. As the first of their families to attend college, many first-generation students often navigate…
Issue Brief
May 16, 2022
Can Evidence-Based Teaching Techniques Address the Education Debt that Students of Color Are Owed?
Evidence-based teaching strategies (EBTs) have become increasingly popular, as the practices have been linked to positive academic outcomes and should, theoretically, benefit all students regardless of their background. In this brief we identify the areas where research on EBTs lacks a critical, equity-minded orientation and offer suggestions on how future research can utilize an equity-first mindset. We present strategies that can be used by practitioners who hope to orient EBTs towards creating equitable learning environments for their students.
Past Event
May 18, 2022
No Holding Back: Administrative Holds Policies and Practices
James Ward presents during Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) webinar
On May 18th at 12:00 PM (Mountain Time), James Ward will join a panel during a Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) webinar to discuss research on administrative holds policies and practices at the state, system, and institution-level. For abstract, please see below. The webinar registration information is available here. It can be difficult to get the attention of a college student. Professors can always connect with students in class. However, advisors and administrators have few means…
Blog Post
May 2, 2022
Addressing Food Insecurity Will Pay Off for States
In order to achieve their ambitious attainment goals, most states will need to rapidly increase credential production. Increasing attainment improves a state’s fiscal outlook, increases individual wages, improves individual health and life outcomes, and increases civic engagement. However, our research suggests that most states’ goals will remain out of reach unless their plans…
Past Event
April 22, 2022
Stranded Credits: A Matter of Equity at AERA Annual Meeting
On April 22, 2022 11am ET, Sosanya M. Jones will be presenting the equity in stranded credits work at AERA. This presentation would highlight the findings from a descriptive qualitative student on the stranded credit phenomenon and how it affects students of color and those from low socio-economic backgrounds. Our findings will highlight the student perspective to give more insight into how institutional debt perpetuates and exacerbates inequity in higher education. We spoke to both students and a few…
Research Report
March 31, 2022
The Impacts of Emergency Micro-Grants on Student Success
Evaluation Study of Georgia State University’s Panther Retention Grant Program
The Panther Retention Grant (PRG) program at Georgia State University (Georgia State) is one of the nation’s pioneering examples of a retention or completion grant program, a type of emergency financial aid program aimed at supporting students with immediate financial need. The program, which specifically targets students who are in good academic standing and have exhausted all other sources of aid, automatically awards up to $2,500 to clear students’ unpaid balances and allow them to remain enrolled for the term.
Research Report
March 30, 2022
Underrepresentation of Black and Latino Undergraduates at America’s Most Selective Private Colleges and Universities
Attending a more selective college or university matters because these institutions graduate a larger share of their students. Attaining a bachelors’ degree increases expected lifetime earnings by roughly 65 percent over attaining only a high school diploma. Who has access to these selective institutions therefore has an impact on economic and social mobility in America, an objective that justifies the federal, state and local support of higher education. However, evidence suggests that selective schools could be doing more.
Past Event
April 12, 2022
James Ward at 2022 AEFP conference
On April 12 at 12 PM ET, James Ward will join other panelists during a session titled, “State Authorization in Higher Ed: Processes and Policies to Promote Opportunity and Ensure Educational Quality”. Below is the abstract: The final paper discusses findings from research on state authorization and online enrollments. The growth of online education has resulted in a cooperative approach among states to grant reciprocal authorization in an effort to lower regulatory burdens. In their study, they assess the impact…
Blog Post
March 17, 2022
Evaluating the Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts Initiative
Strengthening transfer pathways between two-year and independent not-for-profit four-year institutions is one under-utilized way to increase transfer and bachelor’s degree completion. Independent colleges offer high graduation rates, flexible degree options, and personalized supports that can assist students looking to complete a four-year degree. Increasing transfer to these institutions at scale can be accomplished through state- or consortium-wide pathways that link all community colleges in a state to a critical number of independent four-year institutions. The…
Research Report
March 17, 2022
Playbook for Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts
How to Design and Implement Statewide Pathways from Community Colleges to Independent Colleges
Bachelor’s degree attainment for community college transfer students is one underutilized but essential pathway for reducing equity gaps in higher education. One way to achieve this at scale is through state-level initiatives dedicated to supporting transfer from community colleges to not-for-profit independent colleges. The Teagle Foundation and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations’ Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts initiative aims to create such pathways in 20 states in the next five years. This playbook draws on the experience of grantees…
Blog Post
February 16, 2022
Understanding Educational Space Needs in Prisons
New Project Announcement
Across higher education, classrooms and study commons have been reimagined to foster student engagement and learning. But for higher education in prison programs, it can prove challenging to find spaces optimized for education, much less space designed to support their educational needs. Access—or the lack of access—to classrooms, libraries, and scientific and computer labs, can play determining roles in the quality of higher education programming. With many competing demands for space, Departments of Corrections (DOC) may be inclined to look…
Blog Post
February 3, 2022
An Interview with Dr. Jay Darr, Director of University Counseling Center at the University of Pittsburgh
A Deep Dive on the Importance of Mental Health and Its Shared Responsibility Across Campus
Dr. Jay Darr is the Director of the University Counseling Center (UCC) at the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt), a member of the American Talent Initiative’s (ATI) Academic Equity Community of Practice (CoP). As part of our Academic Equity Interview Blog series (for our first post we interviewed Claremont McKenna’s Nyree Gray on campus climate), we asked Dr. Darr to help…
Blog Post
February 2, 2022
Bringing Credit Transfer into Focus
New Report on the Articulation of Transfer Credit at CUNY Project
When a student transfers from one college to another, the receiving college has to decide how to treat the credits that the student earned at prior institutions. While the specific process varies from place to place, in general, the institution has to make two interrelated decisions: (1) the course equivalency—how each course the student completed at another institution translates into courses in the catalog at the new institution, and (2) how the translated courses…
Research Report
February 2, 2022
Archiving Degree Audit Data to Measure and Reduce Lost Transfer Credit
Since June 2019, the Articulation of Credit Transfer project (ACT) has focused on streamlining the information, advising, and administrative processes concerning how credits from one City University of New York (CUNY) institution transfer to another CUNY institution. This work addresses a critical challenge at CUNY, and indeed, across American higher education. When students transfer from one college to another, they frequently are unable to count their previously earned credits toward degree requirements at their new institution, jeopardizing their ability to…
Past Event
February 1, 2022
Information Session: Summer 2022 Internships at Ithaka S+R
Colette Johnson, James Ward, and Kurtis Tanaka at CUNY Graduate Center
On Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm ET, representatives from Ithaka S+R will provide an overview of their work, discuss opportunities to join their team, and answer questions about what it’s like to work at Ithaka S+R. Employer information sessions are a great opportunity to meet company representatives and ask any questions you might have about their organization or application process.
Blog Post
January 18, 2022
Turning on the TAP
Restoring Tuition Assistance for Incarcerated Students in New York
In her first State of the State address since taking office, New York Governor Kathy Hochul outlined an agenda that included repealing the 27-year ban on college tuition assistance, also known as TAP, for incarcerated students. In 1995, when the ban was first instituted, incarcerated students accounted for less than 1 percent of TAP funding state-wide. The ban dovetailed with the 1994 Crime Bill’s elimination of federal Pell grants for incarcerated students and…
Blog Post
January 5, 2022
Providing Library Services for Higher Education in Prison
An Interview with Jessica Licklider and Jeannie Colson
In a previous blog post I interviewed Jeanie Austin of the San Francisco Public Library about their new book on providing library services to incarcerated people. With the restoration of Pell funding for incarcerated students set to take place in 2023, the field of higher education in prison (HEP) is currently grappling with how to prepare for this long-awaited expansion of funding and opportunity, and academic libraries that wish to serve this student group must likewise prepare to meet…