While a greater number of Americans than ever aspire to a college degree, there are several barriers to equitable access to higher education as well as success after enrollment, depending on where students live, their socioeconomic status, whether they start their education at a community college, and their age and race.
We’re illuminating, evaluating, and addressing the challenges students face in accessing higher education and completing a credential.
Expanding educational opportunities for underserved groups
Our research illuminates the challenges facing underserved students—from adult learners and veterans to students from low-income backgrounds and learners in prison—to open doors to higher education.
- Adult learners: Re-engaging stopped-out students and streamlining a path back to a degree
- American Talent Initiative: Increasing access for talented low- and moderate-income students
- Justice initiatives: Advancing equitable and high-quality education in prisons and jails
- Student veterans: Improving educational opportunities for veterans
Supporting student success initiatives
To support colleges and universities in their efforts to better serve students, we partner with institutions to evaluate student success initiatives, their impacts on student populations, and offer guidance to boost credential attainment.
- Texas student success program inventory: Creating space for collaboration and innovation in student success programming
- Monitoring advising analytics to promote success: Evaluating the impacts of technology-enhanced advising on student retention and achievement
- Community College Academic and Student Services Ecosystem: Helping community college library and academic leaders translate research on student needs into services that support student success
- Increasing adult and Latino student success: Evaluating the Latino and Adult Student Success Academy, a multi-year initiative administered by the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL)
Addressing barriers to degree attainment and developing solutions
We are conducting research on the hurdles students face after enrollment and developing innovative strategies and services to improve student success and learning outcomes, graduation rates, and time to degree.
- Understanding basic needs insecurity: Engaging a cohort of colleges and universities to explore how undergraduate students define and experience basic needs insecurity, and develop effective outreach and support strategies.
- Enhancing support for rural students: Convening a network of rural-serving colleges and universities to evaluate student success programs, streamline transfer, and align programs with workforce needs.
- Re-engaging adult learners in Pennsylvania: Collaborating with Southwest Pennsylvania institutions and community-based organizations to address barriers to enrollment and design strategies that promote persistence and completion.
- Increasing credit mobility: Working to improve the transfer process by conducting critical research and creating new tools that enable students to chart their higher education journey.
Evaluating degree attainment policies
How do state policies affect degree attainment? We analyze data to better understand the critical issues impacting retention and attrition, and provide guidance on boosting educational outcomes.
- Assessing the impact of state policies on higher education attainment: Evaluating the efficiency of state policies in expanding college opportunity and closing attainment gaps, in partnership with the Joyce Foundation
- Using student data to tackle attrition and boost student success and retention: Partnering with four-year institutions to uncover barriers to retention for their student populations and potential solutions