Awarded Grants

This grant supports MDRC in partnering with Ascendium to design a grantmaking initiative that will build next-generation evidence on sectoral training programs. The initiative will identify the conditions and mechanisms needed to deliver and scale effective programs.

This grant supports the University of Puget Sound in designing and beginning to create resources and trainings aimed at improving teaching and learning within college classrooms in prison. An initial project will focus on identifying and codifying promising practices for preparing faculty to teach in carceral settings.

This grant supports Social Finance in piloting innovative workforce training financing models to improve labor market outcomes for learners from low-income backgrounds. Social Finance will design models leveraging outcomes-based funding structures in two areas: (1) to support learners in accessing and succeeding in pre-apprenticeships and (2) to catalyze training programs within specific industry sectors critical to rural workforce needs. Social Finance will also launch the Social Finance Institute as a hub for dissemination of insights from these and other initiatives, with a focus on informing public and private leaders about strategies to build sustainable and inclusive talent development pipelines.

This grant supports the State University of New York (SUNY) in expanding its postsecondary education in prison programs and solidifying the SUNY Office of Higher Education in Prison as the convener of and technical assistance provider for programs on 20 SUNY campuses.

This grant supports The Education Trust-West in providing technical assistance to teams from up to 16 California institutions to develop and implement plans for scaled developmental education reform pursuant to state legislative mandates.

This grant supports the American Indian College Fund in supporting tribal colleges and universities to implement intentional career development programming that will prepare learners from low-income backgrounds for, and connect them with, good jobs in their regions.

This grant supports Sova in improving equity in transfer and credit mobility by exploring the role of accreditors in reforming institutional policies and practices that pose barriers to transfer student success.

This grant supports the University of Tennessee's Grow Your Own Center in enabling postsecondary institutions to launch competency-based teacher apprenticeship programs that reach rural regions and learners throughout the state. Through the launch of the Institute for Competency-Based Teacher Education, postsecondary institutions will have access to standardized, competency-based materials and assessments that will ensure more rural learners can engage in and complete apprenticeship-based degree programs that provide a pathway to teaching jobs in rural school districts.

This grant supports Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison Inc in expanding its programming to more students transitioning from in-prison to free-world postsecondary education. It will also enable Hudson Link to engage in a formative evaluation to improve its services and share lessons learned with other program operators.

This grant supports Work Shift News, a project of Open Campus Media, in continuing and expanding its reporting focused on trends, opportunities, and challenges in postsecondary education and workforce training.