Awarded Grants

This grant supports The Aspen Institute College Excellence Program in supporting a cohort of 10 community colleges to implement policy and practice reforms that will increase the postgraduation success of their students, particularly those from low-income backgrounds.

This grant supports New America Foundation in building capacity at community colleges to create high-quality, affordable and workforce-driven baccalaureate programs. Community college baccalaureate programs provide new or expanded access to in-demand sectors, particularly for underserved populations such as adult learners and learners from low-income backgrounds in rural areas.

This grant supports the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin in building capacity for large-scale mathematics reform in states that have not yet undertaken significant transformation.

This multi-year, Ascendium-led grant supports American Institutes for Research in managing Ascendium’s multi-year research initiative to support action-oriented research aimed at addressing critical gaps in the evidence available to inform scaled and sustained improvements in the postsecondary and workforce outcomes of low-income learners in rural geographies.

This grant supports WestEd in conducting a series of virtual workshops for teams from approximately 30 rural community colleges to assist them in preparing applications for the Strengthening Community College Training Grants funding opportunity announced by the U.S. Department of Labor. 

This grant supports Research Triangle Institute in providing current and historical statistics defining low-income individuals and describing their demographic characteristics, postsecondary progress and success and labor force outcomes.

This grant supports MDRC in assessing faculty behavior and motivations related to course equivalency decisions, a key bottleneck in the transfer process. In partnership with the National Association of System Heads and UC Berkeley, MDRC will conduct research and analysis of faculty's role in transfer articulation processes and explore system-level policy and practice considerations which may support more effective faculty engagement.

This grant supports Ithaka S+R in exploring intersections of high-quality postsecondary education in prison and physical space constraints that impact educational programming in prisons. The goal of the project is to conduct research and develop policy recommendations and design solutions that will allow prisons to maximize access to high-quality postsecondary education programming.

This grant supports Partnership for Education Advancement in bolstering college capacity to plan for, successfully implement and evaluate the use of academic planning technology to help students map a clear path to courses needed for degree completion. In addition to decreasing excess credit accumulation and speeding time to degree for students, the project will help institutions calculate the return on their investment in this type of technology.

This grant supports the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Teachers College, Columbia University in executing a project designed to understand the costs of implementing evidence-based practices to support postsecondary success for learners from low-income backgrounds and students of color at two-year institutions. CCRC will use insights from the study to provide guidance to institutional leaders and state and system policymakers for advancing adequate and equitable funding strategies.