tag: Arnold Ventures
Blog Post
October 16, 2024
Understanding the Role of NACIQI in Quality Assurance
New Report on the Relationship Between NACIQI and Accreditors
As the pace of institutional closure increases for colleges and universities around the United States, the quality assurance ecosystem for postsecondary education becomes ever more essential. The three pillars of that ecosystem—the “triad” established by the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEA)—are the federal Department of Education (ED), the accreditation agencies recognized by ED, and the various state governments which authorize institutions to operate. Together, the triad serves as gatekeepers for student access to federal financial aid, which…
Research Report
October 16, 2024
Beyond Standards
A Critical Examination of the Relationship between NACIQI and Accreditors
The report begins with a primer on the system of higher education quality assurance as it currently exists to establish the necessary context for a closer focus on the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) and its relationships with accreditation organizations. The contextual overview will include a brief explanation of the three members of the quality assurance triad (state recognition boards, accreditors, and the Department of Education) followed by a deeper dive into NACIQI and its process…
Blog Post
May 16, 2023
Findings from MAAPS: A National Technology-Enhanced Advising Experiment
Postsecondary outcomes for lower-income students have been disproportionately harmed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Intensifying and systematizing evidence-based student supports is a promising practice for helping these students. While initially conceived prior to the pandemic, Monitoring Advising Analytics to Promote Success (MAAPS) is one such project that aimed to learn whether and how technology-enhanced advising could better support low-income and first-generation students and promote equity. From 2015 through 2022, the University Innovation Alliance (UIA) and its institutional members tested…
Research Report
May 16, 2023
MAAPS Advising Experiment
Evaluation Findings after Six Years
MAAPS is a large-scale randomized-controlled trial designed to validate the effectiveness of intensive, proactive, technology-enhanced advisement in increasing achievement, persistence, and completion of historically underserved students. This final report on the project presents impact findings for the intent-to-treat effect of MAAPS advisement on participating students’ outcomes for the final analytic sample of 10,037 students and at each participating institution after six academic years.
Blog Post
May 25, 2022
Measuring the Impacts of Federal Oversight of Accreditation
Since the 1960s, the accreditation process and accreditors have played an important gatekeeping function for institutions’ access to federal student financial aid. Recognizing this role, Congress and the federal Department of Education (ED) have introduced and modified federal requirements and oversight of accreditors to ensure that these gatekeepers are protecting students and public dollars. While these federal interventions have clearly shifted the ways accreditors operate and interact with the federal government, there has been little research conducted on…
Research Report
May 25, 2022
Overseeing the Overseers
Can Federal Oversight of Accreditation Improve Student Outcomes?
Since the passage of the Higher Education Act (HEA) of 1965, the federal government has relied on the accreditation process to ensure quality at postsecondary institutions receiving federal dollars. Ithaka S+R began a pilot study in 2021 to assess the feasibility of using publicly available data on the accreditation process and outcomes to evaluate the impact of federal oversight mechanisms on institutional and student outcomes. In this report, we provide an overview of accreditation in the US.
Blog Post
June 24, 2021
Four Years Later: Findings from a National Technology-Enhanced Advising Experiment
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted and in many cases widened socioeconomic and other disparities in higher education, making evidence-based approaches that support underserved students more important than ever before. One project that aimed to promote equity and student success across a set of large, public universities is Monitoring Advising Analytics to Promote Success (MAAPS). In 2016, the University Innovation Alliance (UIA) and its institutional members began testing the effectiveness of MAAPS, an intervention consisting of intensive, proactive, technology-enhanced…
Research Report
June 24, 2021
MAAPS Advising Experiment
Evaluation Findings after Four Years
Acknowledgements This project is generously funded by a US Department of Education First in the World validation grant,[1] with additional support from Arnold Ventures. We thank the project principal investigator, Dr. Timothy Renick of Georgia State University, for inviting Ithaka S+R to serve as its independent evaluator and for being an invaluable thought and project partner. We would like to acknowledge the key role of the University Innovation Alliance (UIA), which inspired the project by…