This webinar unpacks Compounding Inequities, a report by the Higher Ed Equity Network that examines the adverse effects of access, affordability, and equitable investment issues on the racial wealth gap. The report addresses the integrated nature of these issues and highlights promising practices for reform across the higher education sector.

Despite the intention of the higher education sector to serve as an engine for economic mobility, the status quo in admissions policies, financial aid, and institutional support harms more than helps minoritized student populations, preventing meaningful upward mobility and trapping students in harmful economic cycles.  By implementing alternative approaches in these interrelated areas - with a focus on economic impacts - institutions can support positive, sustainable economic futures for Black, Indigenous, and Latino/a/x students and more equitable outcomes for students overall.

In partnership with Every Learner Everywhere, Achieving the Dream has developed a set of guides centered on promoting equity in digital learning. The guides are designed to enhance teaching and learning practices with a focus on inclusivity, cultural responsiveness, and student-centered approaches.

This position paper complements the playbook by articulating an imperative for equity as systems, states, and institutions adopt AI and as technology companies expand their AI tools. Without thoughtful policies and oversight, AI risks amplifying unequal privilege that has historically created a system of inequity in higher education.

This AI playbook provides many practical ideas and concepts for higher education institutions and systems to employ generative AI for student success, completion, and equity. It categorizes 170+ use cases and 30+ sample prompts within three key operational frameworks.

This brief examines the community college-to-university transfer pathway and its critical role in increasing higher education equity.

Achieving the Dream’s Equity Toolkit brings together lessons from research and Achieving the Dream’s two decades of experience working with community colleges to create more equitable institutions and help more students complete college and find careers that pay family-sustaining wages. The toolkit provides comprehensive research, tools, and resources to help college teams design and operationalize equity-centered approaches to all aspects of the college’s work as well as provides lessons learned from ATD Network colleges that have successfully increased student outcomes and eliminated equity gaps.

In this report, the authors describe what they learned through field research at six promising community college–K-12 partnerships in Florida and Texas that have begun to extend guided pathways practices to dual enrollment offerings and that have achieved strong results using dual enrollment to expand college access and opportunities for Black, Hispanic, and low-income high school students. For each of the four practice areas, the authors highlight the problems or shortcomings of the conventional dual enrollment approach and explain what the partnerships are doing to rethink and reform dual enrollment in ways that motivate and prepare students from underserved groups to pursue postsecondary pathways to careers after high school. 

This report examines institutional transformation among the Frontier Set network. This initiative brought together a group of diverse colleges, universities, state systems, and supporting organizations that are committed to eliminating race, ethnicity, and income as predictors of student success by transforming how they operate. AIR’s final report on the multiyear initiative presents key findings on what was learned about the use of transformation as a change process to create more equitable student outcomes.

Developmental education reforms such as multiple measures for placement, co-requisites, and math pathways are proven strategies to increase student success in postsecondary education. There is still much to be done to codify these efforts in policy. Policy is key for scale-up and sustainability. This framework provides a guide to move in that direction.

In 2019, I was a relatively new apprenticeship representative in Oregon’s state apprenticeship agency. I had been tasked with helping a local school district design and implement a Registered Apprenticeship Program in advanced manufacturing to serve high school juniors and seniors. Oregon hadn’t had youth-focused apprenticeship for years, and I faced a lot of pressure to get this program right.

Complete College America (CCA), a national non-profit organization on a mission to raise postsecondary attainment in the United States, announced today the selection of eleven state partners to join the Complete College Accelerator, an ambitious nationwide initiative to improve student success and close gaps in college access and completion. With funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Intermediaries for Scale (IFS) initiative, CCA will work with eleven state agencies over the next four years to implement research-based practices designed to dramatically increase college completion on a statewide scale.

The U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling on race-conscious admissions is reverberating across higher education. Highly selective institutions that have long relied on affirmative action to boost enrollment of students of color are scrambling to redesign admissions policies to adhere to the ruling without undermining their attempts at fostering diversity. Several states and colleges are also now reassessing and eliminating scholarships and other financial aid programs that consider a student's race.

For Varying Degrees 2023: New America’s Seventh Annual Survey on Higher Education, we interviewed 1,497 Americans ages 18 and older, including oversamples of Black, Latinx, and Asian Americans, to better understand their perspectives on education after high school. This year’s survey continues our core questions about the value of higher education, how it is funded, and how it should be held accountable, and includes new questions about equity in higher education.

This brief provides student affairs practitioners and higher education administrators guidance on how to implement equitable practices for supporting student respondents, who are defined as individuals who have been reported to be the perpetrator of sexual misconduct such as harassment and assault. Respondent services can operate as a supportive tool for students in a Title IX process and provide an opportunity for students to recognize the harm they have caused. Respondent services can also ensure that both parties can meaningfully participate in difficult adjudication procedures. This brief introduces five steps colleges and universities can complete to construct a robust, effective program.

This report examines the labor-market value of associate’s degrees and certificate programs, finding that field of study especially influences future earnings for these programs since they are tightly linked with specific occupations. The Overlooked Value of Certificates and Associate’s Degrees: What Students Need to Know Before They Go to College also reveals that the combined number of certificates and associate’s degrees awarded by colleges is similar to the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded—around 2 million per year—with certificates and associate’s degrees each accounting for about 1 million.

At Future Ready, Complete College America’s 2023 Annual Convening, respected higher education leaders, practitioners, and policymakers will share how they are looking to the future on affordability, equity, emerging technologies, changing political landscapes, and more. 

The full schedule will be shared in October, but below, you can see a list of confirmed content and sessions for the 2023 Annual Convening. 

This policy brief describes four public policy priorities that align with AASCU’s 2023 Public Policy Agenda and will help RCUs reinvigorate and sustain stewardship of place for the benefits of students, families, communities, and our nation.

Nearly 76 percent of the 2.4 million students who started college in fall 2021 returned for their second year. This persistence rate marks a one-year increase of 0.9 percentage points and a return to pre-pandemic levels. Persistence rate gains are notable among full-time students, Native American students, and computer science majors.

Compelling evidence of how the Higher Ed Equity Network’s members collaborate to identify challenges and barriers in the field, develop innovative solutions, and then deploy those solutions to institutions can be found in the senior team curriculum created through a precursor network to the Higher Ed Equity Network.

Join us at New America's DC offices for two panel discussions with affirmative action experts and students. Together, we will explore what it could look like to ensure students from all walks of life, especially those from underrepresented and marginalized backgrounds, have an equal opportunity to access higher education and economic prosperity.

Join the conversation online by using #DefendDiversity and following @NewAmericaEd.

We further call on higher education leaders and policymakers to examine all the ways that their admissions processes may be disproportionately keeping Latino students from applying or enrolling. Universities and colleges must do the hard work to update these processes to ensure Latinos have equal access to pursue higher education. 

The current exclusion and discrimination of Latinos in higher education is unacceptable. The Supreme Court handed the nation a setback today, but it is up to all of us to ensure that the fight for equity and equality continues because when Latinos succeed, we all succeed.

The member organizations of the Higher Ed Equity Network, a collective impact network dedicated to advancing social and economic mobility through postsecondary education, that have signed on to this statement are deeply concerned about the implications of the Court’s decision. We believe this ruling will be detrimental to the progress made towards ensuring equitable access, opportunity, and outcomes for all students–especially Black, Latino/a/x, Asian American, Pacific Islander, and Indigenous 
students.  

Achieving the Dream is committed to continuing to work with our Network of colleges, and higher education in general, to make access to and success through higher education, from dual enrollment to credential attainment through transfer and bachelor’s degree attainment, more equitable. We firmly believe, as outlined in our organization’s equity statement, that when colleges intentionally design and implement antiracist and just structures, policies, and practices that combat oppression, students and their communities thrive. 

AASCU will continue to firmly advocate for policies that provide increased access to underrepresented individuals who seek to improve themselves and their families through higher education. AASCU will also encourage its members and institutional partners across higher education to seek permissible avenues to continue to build a fair, productive, and equitable higher education system.

“Higher education, on its own, cannot solve centuries of racism, classism, and discrimination. But higher education can and must do its part to help right those wrongs. It can and must build diverse, enriching learning environments that prepare future leaders for a global society. It can and must lay the foundation for a better life and fortified economic security for generations to come.  

Now is the time for institutional leaders to act.”

Over the course of five decades, affirmative action - and race-conscious admissions in particular - has fundamentally altered colleges and universities to be more racially diverse and to expose students to a broader range of perspectives. More than ever, we must affirm that fostering an inclusive campus remains an integral part of the mission of higher education, and is key to cultivating academic inquiry and advancing student success.  

For the past nineteen years, the Campaign for College Opportunity has been the only independent voice in California exclusively focused on expanding college access, improving college completion, and closing the equity gaps by race that persist in higher education. Our commitment to advocating for students’ rights to a higher education free of barriers has never been as crucial as it is now with a U.S. Supreme Court decision that has ended nearly 60 years of race-conscious college admissions.

Our education system simply does not provide all students with the same opportunities, and it never has. We must be proactive to ensure communities who have been historically and intentionally excluded have pathways to and through higher education. Race-conscious admissions were one effective lever to do just that – but we must find new ways to work toward equity and diversity on our campuses. We cannot afford to give up on the students still dreaming of degrees as a tool to fulfill their own American Dream. 

Nearly 70 years after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision by the Supreme Court, opportunity remains segregated in America. While the K-12 public school student population grows more diverse, many schools remain divided along racial, ethnic, and economic lines, according to a 2022 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Young people really do have it harder these days. It’s taking them longer to get a good job compared to generations past.

While just over half of older baby boomers had a good job by age 27, older millennials aren’t achieving the same milestone until age 30.¹ This has downstream effects, influencing the jobs that young people take and when they get married, have children, buy a home, or start a business. The rules of the game just aren’t the same anymore.

The US Supreme Court appears poised to end the consideration of race and ethnicity in college admissions, creating an urgent need to undertake sweeping education reforms to prevent declines in enrollment of underrepresented minority students at selective colleges and universities.

As higher education institutions seek to support learners in a more holistic and comprehensive manner, many are turning to wraparound services to ensure that learners’ full range of needs are addressed. Specifically, wraparound services are programs and support initiatives that go beyond assisting learners with the normal rigors of academics.

The American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), which represents 350 public colleges, universities, and systems throughout the U.S., today announced a new initiative aimed at helping campus leaders create the conditions for equitable democracy to thrive. With the generous support of a $575,000 grant from Lumina Foundation, the new program will prepare senior leaders at the nation’s state colleges and universities to create rich educational opportunities for students to lead and engage in the civic and democratic process on campus and in their communities.

Industry-led public‒private partnerships have tremendous potential to build and grow these employer‒college relationships, but little information is available on these partnerships and their postsecondary initiatives. This project aims to fill this gap and foster the growth of these initiatives by highlighting the features of industry-led public‒private partnerships’ initiatives with postsecondary institutions and providing lessons and opportunities for developing, sustaining, and scaling these initiatives.

Rising Above The Threshold: How Expansions in Financial Aid Can Increase the Equitable Delivery of Postsecondary Value for More Students uses publicly available data to find that at least 2,414 institutions, enrolling 18.3 million undergraduates nationwide, typically deliver a minimum economic return to students, defined as Threshold 0. Students meet Threshold 0 if they earn at least as much as a high school graduate, plus enough to recoup their investment in college within ten years. But approximately 500 institutions, enrolling nearly 1.5 million undergraduate students, do not meet this threshold. Affordability is part of the reason why.

Using statewide administrative data in Texas on students who entered 9th grade in 2015 or 2016 and took at least one dual enrollment course through a community college, this paper examines dual enrollment course enrollments and outcomes among recent high school entrants.

Community colleges are uniquely positioned to support their local communities with pathways to economic and social mobility. But a recent report draws attention to a decline in Black college students, particularly at community colleges, which enroll over one-third (36%) of Black students entering postsecondary education.

The Powered by Publics Equity Roundtables: A Guide for Universities Report was informed by the experience of four equity roundtables held last year that convened administrators and students from 20 public universities. This how-to-guide provides institutions with an adaptable resource for hosting equity roundtables of their own to engage students and administrators in addressing barriers to equitable student success.

We must shift the federal role toward a focus on college completion and provide higher education with the funds it needs to invest in proven methods that help more students not only enroll in college but leave with a degree.

This report aims to inform and mobilize Illinois legislative leaders, state agencies, foster care facilities, case workers,and advocates to improve workforce outcomes for these young adults.

Illinois leaders and providers need to keep working to ensure that youth who interact with our foster care system have the adequate resources and pipelines to obtain a well-paying job and reach their full potential as they move into adulthood.

A recent report co-authored by Carol Pazera, a senior research analyst at the Dana Center, examined the role of teachers’ knowledge of curriculum in helping teachers adapt to new science standards, such as the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).  

Adopted by most states, NGSS is based on A Framework for K-12 Science Education and calls for a major shift from a more teacher-directed approach to a student-centered one.

This brief shares learnings from the community of LEAP organizations and partners as they continue to deepen their practices to enhance the positive impact and durability of programming while also scaling to reach greater numbers of young people in similar situations.

The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center will produce annual publications on postsecondary enrollment, outcomes, and subgroup trends to gauge progress in pandemic recovery and identify the places and populations that are in greatest need of intervention. In addition to reports, the Research Center will create interactive data dashboards to allow users to drill down on specific student demographic subgroups, institution types, and states of interest.

When our founder and CEO Dr. Bridget Burns appeared on An Educated Guest, a podcast by Wiley University Services and Talent Development, host Todd Zipper asked a number of excellent questions. We shared this conversation on the University Innovation Alliance's (UIA) own Innovating Together Podcast as an extra opportunity to clearly articulate our mission and methods. 

As we start our new awards season here at WCET, we’re thrilled to continue to feature our previous honorable mentions for the 2022 WOW Award. Our judges were so impressed by this project and the inspiration the team showed that we wanted to honor their work. Thank you to Archana, Baiyun, and Joseph for sharing your experiences with us!

 A new report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) identifies 10 pathway changes involving education, training, and work experience with the greatest potential to improve employment outcomes for young adults. In What Works: Ten Education, Training, and Work-Based Pathway Changes That Lead to Good Jobs, funded by a philanthropic investment from JPMorgan Chase, CEW researchers developed the Pathways-to-Career policy simulation model, which uses longitudinal data to identify promising junctures at which a strategic intervention could increase the likelihood of working in a good job—one we define as providing minimum annual earnings of about $38,000 per year, with a median of $57,000, at age 30. 

The University Innovation Alliance's playbook for Bridging the Gap from Education to Employment offers a detailed roadmap for creating a seamless college-to-career transition. This new paradigm takes a holistic approach to career preparation—building deeper relationships with employers and providing better resources to students from first generation or low income households, and students of color.

There’s a growing consensus that the use of open educational resources (OER) has reached a turning point. Spurred by the shift to online learning during the pandemic and ongoing efforts by states, institutions, philanthropies and individual faculty members to make learning materials more accessible, affordable and responsive to students’ experiences and needs, nearly one in four instructors (22%) used OER in fall 2022, up nearly fivefold since 2016.

As the economy and the labor market started to recover around 2011, many of these students went back to work, and community college enrollment started to drop. The decline continued over the next decade, and then took a steeper dive during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fortunately, enrollment data from spring 2023 suggest that students are starting to come back to community colleges, though total numbers are well below pre-pandemic levels.

As NASPA and Culture of Respect staff reflect on the conclusion of the spring 2023 academic semester, we want to highlight various programming events Collective institutions hosted in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM). SAAM was formally declared in 2001, however, the history of anti-violence work stems back much further with Black women and transgender people of color led protests and social programming beginning in the 1940s. 

TXNSI is a collaborative launched and facilitated by the Communities Foundation of Texas’ Educate Texas, Learning Forward, and the Charles A. Dana Center. The networked improvement community consists of 12 middle and junior high schools across two school districts in North Texas. TXNSI aims to increase the percentage of students who are on track to college and career success by the end of eighth grade, with a focus on students who are Black, Latino, and experiencing poverty.

Through its first two years, the Higher Ed Equity Network has now focused its activities on four initial priorities which will have a significant impact on outcomes for these target student populations. Member organizations, bringing a combined deep experience in these areas, are leading the work which will result in specific policy solutions and practice improvements.

This blog post focuses on institutional racism and the role of intermediaries in addressing it within their organizations and among partners in a pathways ecosystem, and, through their leadership, modeling an approach for others in the field of education and workforce development to emulate.

In addition to insights from Aspen-Siemens award winners, this guide draws examples from other Observations on and insights about colleges’: Outreach and Recruitment WHAT’S IN THIS GUIDE? Aspen research. Several examples are drawn from finalists and winners of the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence, which assesses both equity and workforce outcomes; others come from colleges featured in Aspen’s The Workforce Playbook.

LEVEL UP: Leveraging Explicit Value for Every Black Learner, Unapologetically, details the importance of decreasing inequities and changing the higher ed landscape so that Black learners, and by extension, all communities, thrive.

This HCM Strategists report describes the diversity and complexity of community college state finance systems, and how to identify the often competing incentives within them, by comparing the systems of three very different states: California, Ohio, and Texas. The authors conducted extensive research, engaged with state policymakers, and created an analytical framework to fill a major gap in existing research, which largely focuses on individual elements of community college funding or policy rather than how they all add up.

The Spring Convening of the Higher Ed Equity Network was the first in-person gathering for all 31 member organizations. Hear what some of the leaders from those organizations had to say about this valuable opportunity to come together, engage in important discussions, and plan for the network's future. 

More than 30 organizations working in postsecondary education announced the launch of the Higher Education Equity Network. The national organizations, which have decades of experience in the areas of research, policy, advocacy, and effective practices, will collectively draw from their respective areas of expertise to work on eliminating systemic barriers to help Black, Latin/a/o/x, and Indigenous students reach their full potential while pursuing higher education. 

The Student Success Institute (SSI) for Provosts is a leadership development program tailored to the distinctive needs of established provosts. SSI will help provosts with at least one year of experience in the role to lead and implement the type of transformational change necessary to meet the evolving needs of today’s increasingly diverse student body.

The Transfer Intensive is a one-year initiative consisting of monthly sessions designed to support partnerships between community colleges and AASCU members in advancing the practices and policies associated with improved, more equitable transfer student success. The workshop series will provide practical support aimed at accelerating transfer reform over the course of the year at participating institutions. The program is free for all participants thanks to the generous support of Ascendium.

The Growing What Works Database is online and searchable. It is a resource for practitioners, institutional leaders, funders, and policymakers interested in evidence-based practices that accelerate Latino student success in higher education. The database is made up of over 200 active programs initially recognized through our Examples of Excelencia review process.

Since 2005, Examples of Excelencia has been the only national effort recognizing evidence-based programs improving Latino student success in higher education. This year an external selection committee selected 4 programs among our 20 Finalists that stand out for their evidence-based efforts to advance Latino student success in higher education. These programs are based across four levels: Associate, Baccalaureate, Graduate, and Community-Based Organizations. The four programs are leaders in intentionally serving Latino students in culturally responsive, asset-based ways that positively impacts students and their communities.

Every Learner Everywhere developed a report on how barriers to equity in digital learning differ across racial, ethnic, and economic backgrounds.

Transfer policies and articulation agreements aim to provide seamless transitions between and across technical or community colleges and four-year institutions. Clear and accessible transfer pathways can support increased student persistence and completion rates, particularly for highly mobile students who may transfer between multiple institutions before degree completion. While many articulation agreements exist at the institution- or system-level, states are increasingly setting statewide credit transfer requirements, ensuring all students enter their postsecondary career with similar understandings of — and options for — success. 

Beyond Good Intentions provides action steps and tips for states to craft equity-driven policies that will lead to transformational change at colleges and universities as well as support state goals. It builds on findings from Race-Conscious Implementation of a Developmental Education Reform in California Community Colleges, a companion report by the University of Southern California (USC) Race and Equity Center.

No Middle Ground helps colleges assess their practices so they can find ways to improve—to identify inequities, address them, and bring everyone at the college into this essential work. Colleges must be bold to do this work effectively because every action either advances the cause of equity or further entrenches inequities. There is no middle ground.

In this framework, we focus closely on the persistent challenges that many Black Americans experience throughout their education and working lives, starting as young teenagers first exploring job opportunities and continuing as adults seeking careers that can propel them to the middle class. Through research, analysis, interviews with Black learners and workers, and guidance from our advisory council of Black leaders, we have developed recommendations to promote the economic advancement of Black Americans today and in the ever-changing economy of the future.  

This article & database finds that the economic value of business programs is high compared to the financial returns from other programs, though not as high as returns associated with health, engineering, and computer and information sciences programs. Two years after graduation, associate’s degree holders in business have median annual earnings of $30,000 after debt payments. The financial returns from a business degree rise to $43,200 after debt payments for bachelor’s degree holders and $51,600 for master’s degree holders.

Degrees When Due (DWD) is a completion and equity initiative led by the Institute for Higher Education Policy to help states and colleges increase degree attainment among the “some college, but no degree” population. Launched in 2018, nearly 200 institutions in 23 states have joined the first three cohorts of DWD to build expertise, capacity, and infrastructure on campuses to get students back on track and across the completion finish line. This case study about BGSU, offers insights into how, even with limited resources amidst a global pandemic, an institution of higher education can integrate a data-informed degree completion effort.

Careers in technology can open doors to economic opportunity for Black learners and workers. Our market scan identifies innovative career preparation, technology training, and advancement programs and platforms that offer a unique combination of best practices for building pathways to and advancement within tech jobs, including tailored supports and a commitment to transforming the systems in which we all learn and work.

The Postsecondary Value Commission has tapped newly available data and insights to propose a new approach for measuring the value of education after high school and to recommend actions that college and university leaders, state and federal policymakers, and students and families can take to improve those returns and make them more equitable.

This tool is an interactive resource that captures students’ post-college earnings for more than 4,000 colleges and universities nationwide. The Explorer provides results for institutions according to earnings thresholds developed by the commission and offers the ability to view outcomes for different student populations.

Complete College America, a Higher Ed Equity Network member organization, launches a new report that outlines a decade of data on the effectiveness of coreq as well as new insights on how to implement and scale.

Postsecondary education has the potential to transform lives by providing economic and non-economic benefits to students, their families, communities, the workforce, and ultimately the entire world—but only if the policies that shape that system are themselves equitable. To support more inclusive and deliberate policymaking processes at every level of government and within institutions of higher education, IHEP convened an Advisory Committee for Equitable Policymaking Processes and, on the one-year anniversary of Executive Order 13985, released “Opening The Promise:” The Five Principles of Equitable Policymaking.  This report sets forth an actionable framework informed by insights from more than two dozen experts across the field of higher education. The framework’s five interrelated principles are designed to inform every aspect of the policymaking process, from the creation of new policy and amending of existing policy, to determining priorities and setting the course of action for a policymaking body.

This paper distills some of the key research findings in these four focus areas: campus culture, academic advising and student support, financial aid, and institutional policy. This paper then provides concrete strategies that institutions and their intermediary partners can use to further their work toward institutional transformation in support of equitable outcomes for historically excluded students.

This report provides an update on California’s progress and persistent challenges related to admissions to the UC and CSU. While there is good news in this report, especially related to growing preparation for the university and growing student diversity in admissions, there are still many concerns preventing California from realizing a goal of equitable access to college for all Californians regardless of their income, race/ethnicity, or Zip Code.

Latinos for Education celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month by hosting the first annual State of Latino Education Convening from October 5th - 7th. This year’s theme was Reclaiming the Promise of Educational Equity.  

Across the three days, nearly 900 attendees engaged with established and emerging Latino leaders around the policies, practices and advocacy efforts to remove barriers for Latino students and families both nationally and locally. We celebrated education champions and Latino educators for their continued contributions to supporting our communities.  

We thank the featured speakers, panelists, award recipients, attendees, and event sponsors for your involvement this year. We invite you to relive the event and stay connected with our work. 

While the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act plays a role in workforce development, state policymakers actively seek ways beyond WIOA requirements to connect education with workforce development. This resource provides an overview of education’s role within state workforce development systems, processes for identifying high-demand occupations and workforce development appropriations.

On September 10, 2021, IHEP hosted the Supporting Our Shared Success briefing to highlight the need for a #CollegeCompletionFund (CCF). The CCF is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to promote completion in a thoughtful, evidence-based, equity-centered, student-focused, innovative, and comprehensive way, and – alongside investments in college affordability and in critical institutions – to address longstanding inequities in college access and success.

The American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) analyzed data from five higher education institutions to examine accessibility for all students. This brief describes a sample data inquiry that can help institutions identify inequities. The brief also provides guiding questions to assist campuses in facilitating discussions about policies and programs to improve equity and promote social mobility.

Countless students would agree: transfer does not work. Despite sustained efforts to “fix” transfer over the past several decades, the current system continues to produce dismal, inequitable outcomes and unnecessary roadblocks that thwart students’ educational goals.

To challenge the status quo, the Tackling Transfer Policy Advisory Board released a set of strong and clear recommendations for systems change, with an emphasis on state, system and federal policies, that dismantle inequitable transfer policies and build a new approach designed to center students and the recognition of their learning as they transfer across institutions and move through their varied lived, work and learning experiences beyond high school.

Selective Bias: Asian Americans, Test Scores, and Holistic Admissions evaluates the common arguments made by affirmative action critics and Students for Fair Admissions, which is suing Harvard University and has lawsuits pending against the University of North Carolina and the University of Texas at Austin over their admissions practices. The report finds no strong evidence of discrimination against Asian American applicants in admissions to highly selective colleges.

By the time an admissions decision arrives in a student’s mailbox or inbox, institutions have already spent significant resources recruiting prospective applicants and poring over their application materials. Indeed, the recruitment, admissions, and enrollment process is high-pressure for both institutions and students. Institutions must meet enrollment goals and are charged with building a diverse incoming class—all within the context of very real financial pressures.

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the highest unemployment that the U.S. has seen since the Great Depression, with particularly heavy job losses for Black, Hispanic, and Native American1 workers. In this set of studies commissioned by Lumina Foundation, the Community College Research Center (CCRC) explores some actions that states and community colleges can take to address the needs of racially minoritized adult learners who are pursuing postsecondary education and training as a path to re-employment, better jobs, and higher incomes.

The action agenda is a key deliverable for the Postsecondary Value Commission that outlines policies and practices that institutional leaders, federal policymakers, and state policymakers should implement to address systemic barriers that prevent Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and AAPI students, students from low-income backgrounds, and women from reaping equitable returns from postsecondary education and achieving economic and social mobility. The action agenda also provides key questions that students and families should expect institutions to answer related to postsecondary value. 

The Postsecondary Value Commission has examined how postsecondary education fosters equitable access to critical post-college outcomes, including sufficient earnings, high-quality jobs, and economic mobility and security. Expanding on recent research about how to measure earnings returns, the Postsecondary Value Framework aims to ensure that colleges and universities are serving as engines of mobility, especially for Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and underrepresented Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) students, students from low-income backgrounds, and women. The following pages detail the Postsecondary Value Commission’s work to capture and operationalize this sentiment. As postsecondary education strives to meet the urgency of this incredible moment, we see great potential for this work to create a more equitable and just future. 

Based on research from the Postsecondary Value Commission, this interactive data tool puts the power of the Value Framework at your fingertips, equipping you with data on the economic value that institutions deliver to their students.

This set of policy briefs and fact sheets is intended to inform the work of advocates and policymakers, particularly at the federal level, as they craft policies on rebuilding the workforce, supporting community colleges, improving graduation and transfer rates, addressing student debt, and more.

VentureWell is on a mission to cultivate a diverse pipeline of inventors, innovators, and entrepreneurs driven to solve the world’s biggest challenges and create lasting impact. We have a long history of—and deep commitment to—supporting faculty and innovators at US-based colleges and universities through funding, training, and building a vital I&E community where collaboration is encouraged and ideas and best practices are shared. We invite you to explore the resources, tools, and opportunities we have assembled to help you advance equity at your institution and in your program.

Building on NASPA’s role as a leading advocate for public policy in support of students and the student affairs profession, and reflecting the Association’s continuing effort to develop members’ professional competencies to engage effectively in public policy conversations, NASPA’s Public Policy Division presents the following agenda to guide member and staff public policy advocacy, professional development, and engagement for 2021 through 2024. Framed according to the 2019-2024 NASPA Strategic Plan, the NASPA Public Policy Agenda is designed to provide flexibility in responding to enduring and emerging policy issues.

Georgetown University Center on Education and Workforce’s new report finds that there is still far from equitable representation in the engineering profession. Engineering pays well, but Black and Latinx engineers earn less than the average. Additionally, women’s representation has only increased by 1% in the last ten years.

Complete College America (CCA) is committed to being a bold voice in the higher education space elevating critical conversations that both actively and passively impact college completion. We find ourselves at a time when the need for these conversations has reached a heightened level of importance. As a convener of thought leaders, CCA's On the Air podcast provides access to the most innovative and effective higher education leaders and advocates through candid conversations.

Preparing students for the world beyond high school is critical to the economic future of our nation. In the state of Texas, historically underserved students comprise the majority of our total student population. To close opportunity gaps and equalize access to high-quality education, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) created the Texas College and Career Readiness School Models (CCRSM) Network. This network, led by the TEA, brings together proven models under a single umbrella of support. Each model offers a unique pathway to postsecondary education while ensuring all students have the opportunity to achieve their highest potential. 

The RGV FOCUS collective impact initiative was launched in 2012 in collaboration with Educate Texas to improve college readiness, access and success in the Rio Grande Valley counties of Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr and Willacy. The vision of RGV FOCUS is to help all learners to achieve a degree or credential that leads to a meaningful career in one of the many industries of opportunity in the Rio Grande Valley, such as education, health services, or advanced manufacturing.

NASPA's Public Policy Division was established to support the association' strategic goals and objectives to provide leadership in higher education through policy development and advocacy for students on important national issues. Major responsibilities include formulating a policy agenda for the association, developing responses to policy proposals, and helping to provide members with information concerning relevant legal, legislative, and other public policy topics.

Stay up-to-date about the latest insights in developmental education reform with the research and resources from our Network. Search by topic to find materials to help you put reforms into action.

ATD advises colleges on building guided pathways that ensure all students can find — and stay on — a clear path to college completion and a career of value. More than 300 colleges nationwide use pathways as the organizing framework for their student success work. Pathways provide an intentionally structured design to support student progression from the time a student expresses an interest in college through the completion of a valuable credential and participation in the labor market, either directly or after completing additional credentials and/or training. Achieving the Dream leverages research and best practice in the field, combined with expertise in coaching, to advise colleges on building and implementing guided pathways for student success.

The American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) presents its 2020 Public Policy Agenda, which underscores the most compelling policy issues affecting regional comprehensive universities and promotes policies that help our institutions fulfill their unique role in educating America’s workforce and strengthening communities. Each issue has implications at the state, federal or both levels of policy and law. Accordingly, we provide our state and federal policymakers with specific actions to take going forward.

All of the Dana Center Math Pathways course materials are available to faculty and curricular leaders at K-12 and postsecondary institutions for free download. Request access to explore and download materials from the courses.

 Explore the ideas, tools, and resources provided by the Dana Center and our fellow joyful conspirators to help make the Dana Center Mathematics Pathways (DCMP) vision a reality.

The Postsecondary Teaching with Technology Collaborative is a research and capacity-building center that aims to study and improve how faculty lead and manage online courses to support student success. Specifically, the Center is investigating how faculty can adapt their teaching and use technology features to help students apply and strengthen a set of mindsets and strategies—such as their sense of belonging and self-efficacy, as well as help-seeking and self-evaluation—broadly known as self-directed learning skills.

CAPR researches, evaluates, and disseminates information on reforms to developmental education that are taking hold at open-access colleges around the U.S..

Nationally, Latino student enrollment and degree completion continues to increase. However, to reach the Latino degree attainment goal of 6.2 million degrees by 2030 requires a tactical plan for Latino college completion. This plan should include: closing equity gaps in degree completion, and accelerating, not just increasing, Latinos’ degree attainment.

Truly serving your students means no one gets lost in the shuffle — or the numbers. ATD takes a deep dive into how your people, processes, and systems use data and technology to build and refine strategies for student success. This assessment includes:

- Review of data used to support student success
- Inventory of technology infrastructure that supports collection and dissemination of student success data
- Discussions with faculty, staff, and administrators to understand current processes, systems, and use of data throughout the institution
- Identification of unmet data needs
- Benchmarking against high-impact practices in the higher education field
- Identification of opportunities for professional development
- Report and discussion of key findings and recommendations

Colleges must dismantle structures and attitudes that fuel inequities. ATD's customized support gives you the insights, skills, and transformational strategies needed to drive equitable student outcomes.

Supporting students holistically involves designing student-centered operations that address the academic and personal needs of all students to ensure they can thrive. The HSS team offers a one-year coaching engagement where we partner with you to design, plan, implement, and assess an equity-focused, student-centered support model. Participating colleges benefit from dedicated coaching and an ongoing partnership with ATD’s subject matter experts, who bring nearly two decades of experience and knowledge from the field and a strong commitment to building equity-centered institutional capacity. These expert coaches help colleges understand their student population, assess the impact of their current design, and redesign a holistic and equitable student experience.

The new VSA Analytics is a robust, interactive, and user-friendly platform for colleges and universities to compare and analyze key performance metrics across institutions. VSA Analytics allows users to build custom analytical and graphical reports with a custom platform in just minutes and eliminates the need to spend days searching, downloading, integrating and analyzing data. Subscribers can add as many campus users as they would like and download the entire custom dataset. 

Philanthropy Advocates, a collaboration with Educate Texas, is a diverse funders’ collaborative of over 50 private, corporate, and community foundations and United Ways. Formerly called the Texas Education Grantmakers Advocacy Consortium (TEGAC), the initiative was created in 2012 to unify grantmakers around a multi-year effort to build support for and improvement in public and higher education in Texas in response to the historic cuts made to public education by the Texas legislature during the 2011 session. In 2019, Philanthropy Advocates joined forces with Educate Texas, a trusted change agent in education, to better advocate together on behalf of our state’s 7 million students.

APLU and its member universities are ensuring transfer student success.  Public research universities are innovating to strengthen pathways for students to easily and efficiently transfer between institutions. For many students, far too many credits are lost during the transfer process, slowing their progress toward a degree.

The Mathematics Pathways to Completion (MPC) is a major effort to support six states to move from a broad vision for mathematics pathways to institutional implementation of the Dana Center Mathematics Pathways (DCMP) model over three years. The goal is to establish effective mathematics pathways at scale that will dramatically increase student success, modernize entry-level mathematics programs across 2– and 4–year public institutions of higher education, and improve alignment with K­–12 mathematics.

The Dana Center and Complete College America (CCA) jointly launched Building Math Pathways to Programs of Study in 2014 as the first initiative in the country to support multiple states to implement mathematics pathways. Six states from the CCA Alliance of States were selected through a competitive application process to receive technical assistance from the Dana Center and CCA over two years.  Each state convened mathematics faculty leaders from 2- and 4-year institutions to work with policy representatives through a state-level math task force to establish a vision for math pathways in that state. After publishing recommendations, the task force leaders oversaw activities to support implementation.

The Student Achievement Measure (SAM) is a comprehensive measure of student progress and completion that reports outcomes for full-time, part-time and transfer students. Created in 2013 by a coalition of six higher education associations, SAM is a voluntary alternative to the federal graduation rate, which is limited to capturing full-time students who graduate from the first institution in which they enroll. Data for SAM come from the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit organization that compiles and analyzes student-level enrollment and completion data from over 3,600 US colleges and universities. Currently, nearly 600 institutions participate in SAM, including over 275 AASCU institutions.  For more information, please visit www.studentachievementmeasure.org.