All Grants

This grant supports the University of Idaho in examining which institutional programs and practices—including first-year programs, career advising and other strategies—may best support retention, completion and successful transition to the workforce for rural learners from low-income backgrounds.

This grant supports the University of Washington in exploring whether rural learners from low‐income backgrounds benefit from postsecondary mentorship programs and identifying best practices for implementing mentorship programs in rural contexts.

This grant supports North Carolina State University in investigating the effectiveness of its statewide Rural College Leaders Program in contributing to student success reforms.

This grant supports Western Illinois University in investigating whether its Paraprofessional Teacher Education Option program reduces barriers for non‐traditional, rural learners from low-income backgrounds to earn a bachelor’s degree in education and teacher licensure.

This grant supports Georgia State University in evaluating the impact of a statewide online instruction initiative on the enrollment, completion and employment outcomes of rural learners.

This grant supports the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy (VICPP) in establishing a statewide coalition focused on increasing high-quality postsecondary education in prison in Virginia. VICCP will raise awareness about postsecondary education in prison and Pell Grant restoration for incarcerated learners and identify and recruit coalition partners.

This grant supports Roadtrip Nation in producing a documentary film and additional video assets that showcase the voices and experiences of justice-impacted individuals who participated in postsecondary education opportunities while incarcerated. The documentary aims to build awareness about the positive impact of access to postsecondary education in prison and help incarcerated and formerly incarcerated learners see the relevance of postsecondary education to their life and career goals.

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 the Cornell Prison Education Program in evolving its incarcerated learner database into a sharable digital tool, while developing models for using this open-source software to improve learner outcomes.

This grant supports Per Scholas in bringing to scale their technology workforce training and professional development model to tens of thousands more learners and hundreds more employer partners throughout the U.S. Ascendium’s investment will support Per Scholas in their efforts to build new partnerships to better reach learners, deepen its bench of highly-qualified instructors and redesign its recruitment and admissions processes to be more learner friendly.