Topic: Student learning and outcomes
Blog Post
October 15, 2019
Prisons, the Higher Ed Market, and Second Chance Pell
Both houses of Congress are debating a set of bills to update portions of the Higher Education Act, the key federal postsecondary education law. The long-overdue refresh has been held up by disagreements over levels of funding, accountability, and how to handle sex discrimination under Title IX, among other issues. Whenever the HEA finally does come up for reauthorization, the move to restore Pell grants to the incarcerated is expected to make the final draft. Legislators who care about improving…
Upcoming Event
November 16, 2019
Towards a Higher Education in Prison Research Infrastructure
Rayane Alamuddin and Meagan Wilson Host Meeting at the 2019 National Conference on Higher Education in Prison
On Saturday, November 16, from 1:00 – 2:00 pm, Rayane Alamuddin and Meagan Wilson are hosting “Towards a Higher Education in Prison Research Infrastructure,” at the 2019 National Conference on Higher Education in Prison in St. Louis, Missouri. For more information, please see the conference website. About the meeting The lack of an adequate research infrastructure surrounding postsecondary prison programming greatly limits our ability to facilitate empirical research evaluating the quality of higher education available to incarcerated students.
Blog Post
October 10, 2019
Update on Ithaka S+R Student Surveys: 2020 Edition
The process for updating Ithaka S+R’s local student surveys is underway. In August, we brought together a fantastic group of advisors and gathered their feedback on current student practices, perspectives, and needs. We then set out to incorporate their feedback into the instruments this past September by adding new thematic areas of focus, expanding on areas of particular importance, and phasing out questions that have become less relevant…
Blog Post
October 2, 2019
An Interview with Dr. Dominique Baker
The Strategic Alignment of State Appropriations, Tuition, and Financial Aid Policies
Dominique Baker is an Assistant Professor of Education Policy and an Associate at the John Goodwin Tower Center for Political Studies at Southern Methodist University. Dr. Baker is an expert in financial aid policies and student debt, and examines the equity implications of higher education policies. Ithaka S+R graciously thanks Dr. Baker for sharing her thoughts on the strategic alignment of state higher education finance policies. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length. With limited funding, where…
Issue Brief
October 2, 2019
The Strategic Alignment of State Appropriations, Tuition, and Financial Aid Policies
In response to the Great Recession in 2008 and 2009, states reduced their expenditures on many public services and goods, including substantial cuts to higher education spending. Despite a strong economic recovery since the Great Recession and significant increases in student enrollment, most states’ spending on higher education has not returned to pre-recession levels. Reductions in state spending and rising costs have led a number of public colleges and universities to increase tuition, making college less affordable for many students…
Blog Post
September 30, 2019
Students Are the Experts
New Report Explores the Needs of Community College Students
How do community college students define their own success? And what services do they think will help them succeed? To find out, we started with a radical idea: students are the experts. Last year, we interviewed dozens of students at seven community colleges on their goals and unmet needs. Today, we release a new report, Student Needs Are Academic Needs, on a…
Research Report
September 30, 2019
Student Needs Are Academic Needs
Community College Libraries and Academic Support for Student Success
The Community College Libraries and Academic Support for Student Success (CCLASSS) project examines student success from the perspective of students themselves, what challenges they face in achieving it, and what services can be developed to effectively support them in their attainment of that success. In fall 2018, we surveyed 10,844 students across seven community colleges to assess the value of and demand for proposed services designed to address students’ expressed goals, challenges, and needs.
Upcoming Event
October 25, 2019
Jenna Joo at Adaptive Lifelong Learning Pathways Workshop
From October 25-27, Jenna Joo is taking part in a workshop at the Virginia Tech National Capital Region Center in Arlington, Virginia, on “Adaptive Lifelong Learning Pathways.” The workshop is designed to build connections among participants and create opportunities to develop further research and implementation of innovative education initiatives. In order to support the implementation and outcomes of this national workshop, participants will contribute to an online living document entitled “Adaptive Lifelong Learning Pathways for an Inclusive Economy.” Participants will…
Blog Post
September 23, 2019
Supporting Postsecondary Access and Success for Rural Students
The American Talent Initiative (ATI), a coalition of high-graduation-rate colleges and universities committed to enrolling and graduating more low- and middle-income students, began a webinar series on special interest topics that we hope will elevate best practices in recruiting talented low- and moderate-income students. This summer, we hosted a webinar on the challenges of identifying, recruiting, and enrolling rural students. In this post, we summarize the key research and best practices presented on the webinar. What is the definition…
Past Event
September 19, 2019
Rayane Alamuddin and Daniel Rossman at the UIA’s Proactive Advising Public Learning Event
Monitoring Academic Analytics to Promote Success (MAAPS)
On Thursday, September 19, at 9:40 am, Rayane Alamuddin and Daniel Rossman will provide an overview of data from the Monitoring Academic Analytics to Promote Success (MAAPS) project at the University Innovation Alliance (UIA) Proactive Advising Public Learning Event in Arlington, Virginia. Later that morning, Rayane is moderating the panel “Lessons from MAAPS.” Panelists include Allison Calhoun-Brown (Georgia State University), Alex Aljets (Oregon State University), and Christina King (Purdue University). These morning sessions are open to the public, and…
Past Event
September 11, 2019
Quality and Equity in the New Credentialing Landscape
Martin Kurzweil at Lumina Foundation Action Meeting
From September 11-12, Martin Kurzweil is participating in the Lumina Foundation’s Action Meeting on “Quality and Equity in the New Credentialing Landscape.” The meeting is convening experts and advocates, along with members of a Lumina task force, to share ideas on how to improve the policies and practices through which various entities help assure and improve quality in postsecondary education.
Past Event
September 8, 2019
Martin Kurzweil at the HAIL Innovation Leaders Summit
From Monday, September 8 – Wednesday, September 10, Martin Kurzweil is taking part in the HAIL/Innovation Leaders Summit at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester. This working group is by invitation and is for institutional leadership focused on business model transformation, joined by colleagues outside of higher ed working on market transformation. For more information, please see the event website.
Blog Post
September 3, 2019
Ithaka S+R Student Surveys: 2020 Edition
Ithaka S+R is gearing up to update our local student surveys and we are now accepting expressions of interest from libraries to field the surveys in the spring 2020 semester. Our student surveys, which have been fielded at dozens of institutions since 2014, were developed to complement our local faculty survey. They cover the perspectives of undergraduate and graduate students on their objectives for pursuing higher education, their coursework activities, and their use…
Past Event
September 28, 2019
Untapped Resources: Addressing Stigma & Scarcity
Christine Wolff-Eisenberg at #RealCollege
On Saturday, September 28, from 1:30-2:15, Christine Wolff-Eisenberg is speaking on “Untapped Resources: Addressing Stigma & Scarcity” at the #Real College Convening at the Houston Community College West Houston Institute. For more information and to register, please visit the #Real College website. …
Upcoming Event
November 6, 2019
Community College Success: Student Perspectives & Institutional Practices
Rayane Alamuddin and Christine Wolff-Eisenberg Present at College Board Forum
On Wednesday, November 6, from 4:00-5:15 pm, Rayane Alamuddin and Christine Wolff-Eisenberg will present on “Community College Success: Student Perspectives & Institutional Practices” at the College Board Forum in Washington, DC. They will be joined on the panel by Dr. Braddlee, Dean of Learning & Technology Resources at Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale Campus , and Robert Gutierrez, Interim Dean of Math and Science at San Jose City College.. For more information about the Forum and to register, please visit…
Blog Post
July 18, 2019
Improving Articulation of Transfer Credit at CUNY
Although over 87 percent of new community college students at the City University of New York (CUNY) intend to transfer and complete at least a bachelor’s degree, only 11 percent do so within six years. Whether and how a student’s credits articulate during transfer can have significant consequences for these students’ educational trajectory. Students who transfer most or all of their credits are 2.5 times more likely to graduate compared to those who…
Blog Post
July 17, 2019
Gearing Up for the Ithaka S+R National Library Director Survey
This fall, we will field the triennial Ithaka S+R Library Survey for the fourth time. The survey examines strategy and leadership issues from the perspective of academic library deans and directors, and through this project, we aim to understand the opportunities and challenges they face in leading their organizations. This project serves as a strong complement to our work with a variety of other communities of academic librarians and is intended to ensure…
Blog Post
June 27, 2019
What we’ve learned so far from a national technology-enhanced advising experiment
Many higher education institutions are implementing advising interventions, if not complete redesigns, in an effort to advise their students in a more timely and targeted manner. While the approaches can take various forms, they have increasingly relied on technology to alleviate the burden of large caseloads by helping advisors easily and quickly identify which students need what type of support, and when. In an ambitious experiment, the 11 institutions that form the University Innovation Alliance (UIA) are testing such an…
Research Report
June 27, 2019
Technical Supplement – Interim Findings Report: MAAPS Advising Experiment
Overview Monitoring Advising Analytics to Promote Success (MAAPS) is a multi-institutional project of the University Innovation Alliance (UIA), supported by a U.S. Department of Education First in the World Grant to Georgia State University, the lead UIA member on this project. MAAPS is a large-scale randomized-controlled trial designed to validate the effectiveness of technology-enhanced proactive advisement in increasing retention, progression, and achievement for low-income and first-generation college students. Addressing documented obstacles to college completion that disproportionately impact at-risk populations,…
Research Report
June 27, 2019
Interim Findings Report: MAAPS Advising Experiment
Monitoring Advising Analytics to Promote Success (MAAPS) is a multi-institutional project of the University Innovation Alliance (UIA), supported by a U.S. Department of Education First in the World Grant to Georgia State University, a UIA member. The large-scale, randomized-controlled trial was designed to test and validate the effectiveness of technology-enhanced, proactive advisement in increasing retention, progression, and achievement for incoming low-income and first-generation college students. The MAAPS intervention was officially launched during the Fall 2016 term at the 11 institutions…