Resource Library

Learners today face a landscape of postsecondary education credentials that may or may not lead to the upward mobility they seek. Learners from low-income backgrounds need career and technical education pathways that can help them get good jobs. The Urban Institute has developed a three-pronged framework that includes strategies for advising, skill building and making employment connections to support these learners in meeting their goals.

On July 1, 2023, 1.5 million people in U.S. prisons become eligible for federal Pell Grants. In this episode of the Future U. podcast, hosts Jeff Selingo and Michael Horn talk to a scholar in prison education and a formerly incarcerated student who went on to earn his degree about how colleges benefit from offering and what it takes to provide meaningful opportunities for these learners to achieve their postsecondary education goals.

The second in a four-part podcast series, representatives from Patrick & Henry Community College and the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program expand on the importance of community college partnerships that put the focus on crafting regional economic solutions. When community colleges establish partnerships with four-year institutions and local and regional employers, high-quality postsecondary education can be developed in alignment with local job needs. This creates economic opportunity for learners, especially those from low-income backgrounds.

Giving students multiple ways to demonstrate their skills helps ensure all students who are ready for college-level math and English courses have the opportunity to take them, which can make access to these courses more equitable. This toolkit from the Center for the Analysis of Postsecondary Readiness — led by the Community College Research Center and MDRC — is designed to help colleges reform assessment and placement using multiple measures.

Today’s learners accumulate college credits from more sources and in more forms than ever before. However, the challenge is that postsecondary institutions lack mechanisms to integrate credit for those experiences, disproportionately affecting learners from low-income backgrounds. The formal recognition of such varied ways to learn can bring learners closer to their postsecondary education goals. Ithaka S+R’s holistic credit mobility framework supports solutions that mitigate credit loss by focusing on learning outcomes rather than where the learning occurred.

JFF’s Student Success Center Network is dedicated to advancing socioeconomic mobility by equitably increasing the number of students earning postsecondary degrees that lead to good jobs. This report summarizes findings from the first five years of the Student Success Center Network's Coaching Program, including case studies and lessons learned.

The Urban Institute uses data from the College Scorecard to take a closer look at short-term Career and Technical Education programs overall and in the six fields of study with the most students. The resulting report examines return on education investment for learners, especially learners from low-income backgrounds. It explores debt, earnings two years after graduation, overall debt burden and how each outcome is shaped by program, institution and labor market characteristics.

Rural Works, an initiative of Rural Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), focuses on community-wide workforce development programming to support more rural workers. This report shares insights from the initiative’s second year, including expansion into more rural communities and the addition of growing workforce partnerships.

Jobs for the Future, Community College Research Initiatives and Achieving the Dream created a set of tools and resources to assist both coaches and leadership in its Student Success Center Network in directly supporting the process of complex institutional change. This brief shares which tools resonated the most with state-based Student Success Center leadership and coaches, how they were used, their benefits and the importance of training to augment their impact on student success.

This report from the Community College Research Center describes how small colleges can fund and sustain guided pathways reforms. It is based on activities at three small Ohio community colleges that have made large-scale changes in practice based on the guided pathways model over the past several years. College leaders credit these changes with improving student progression and completion.

The first in a four part podcast series, five guests on this Rural Matters episode speak to timely issues in rural postsecondary education. This includes how to achieve better opportunities and outcomes, utilize meaningful partnerships and create pathways to education and career success. Leveraging the unique assets of rural communities, these partners elevate rural America as a viable place to live, learn and work.

While a certificate or associate degree may have been enough to obtain a job in sectors like healthcare in the past, more employers are now requiring bachelor’s degrees. This brief from New America explains how allowing community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees in high-demand fields can be beneficial to the learner, employer and local economy, especially in rural areas.