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Higher Education |
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Community Colleges |
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Helping Community College Students Cope with Financial Emergencies
Lessons from the Dreamkeepers and Angel Fund Emergency Financial Aid Programs
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2008. Christian Geckeler with Carrie Beach, Michael Pih, and Leo Yan.
For low-income students, education can be easily derailed by a temporary financial emergency, like the loss of a job or a car repair. This final report offers lessons from two programs created by Lumina Foundation for Education that provide emergency grants or loans to help students at risk of dropping out. Eleven community colleges participated in Dreamkeepers, and 26 tribal colleges or universities participated in Angel Fund.
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The Learning Communities Demonstration
Rationale, Sites, and Research Design
Working Paper
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Published with the National Center for Postsecondary Research
2008. Mary G. Visher, Heather Wathington, Lashawn Richburg-Hayes, and Emily Schneider,with Oscar Cerna, Christine Sansone, and Michelle Ware.
Launched in 2007 by MDRC and the National Center for Postsecondary Research, the Learning Communities Demonstration is testing models of this promising approach in six community colleges in five states. This report describes the research design, including information about the colleges and their models, the random assignment process, data sources, analysis plans, and reporting schedule.
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A Good Start
Two-Year Effects of a Freshmen Learning Community Program at Kingsborough Community College
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2008. Susan Scrivener, Dan Bloom, Allen LeBlanc, Christina Paxson, Cecilia Elena Rouse, and Colleen Sommo, with Jenny Au, Jedediah J. Teres, and Susan Yeh.
Freshmen in a “learning community” at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, NY, moved more quickly through developmental English requirements, took and passed more courses, and earned more credits in their first semester than students in a control group. Two years later, they were also somewhat more likely to be enrolled in college.
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Helping Low-Wage Workers Persist in Education Programs
Lessons from Research on Welfare Training Programs and Two Promising Community College Strategies
Working Paper
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2008. Lashawn Richburg-Hayes.
This working paper, prepared for a conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, reviews what is known about education acquisition by low-wage workers and highlights promising strategies being tested at several community colleges.
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Building a Culture of Evidence for Community College Student Success
Early Progress in the Achieving the Dream Initiative
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2007. Thomas Brock, Davis Jenkins, Todd Ellwein, Jennifer Miller, Susan Gooden, Kasey Martin, Casey MacGregor, and Michael Pih, with Bethany Miller and Christian Geckeler.
Achieving the Dream is a multiyear, national initiative, launched by Lumina Foundation for Education, to help community college students stay in school and succeed. The 83 participating colleges commit to collecting and analyzing data to improve student outcomes, particularly for low-income students and students of color. This baseline report describes the early progress that the first 27 colleges have made after just one year of implementation.
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Early Results from the Opening Doors Demonstration in Ohio
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Two reports present the early results from MDRC’s evaluation of the Opening Doors programs at Lorain County Community College in Elyria, Ohio, and Owens Community College in Toledo. The two-semester programs offered enhanced advising services and a modest scholarship to low-income students to encourage them to stay in school and earn credentials.
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Emergency Financial Aid for Community College Students
Implementation and Early Lessons from the Dreamkeepers and Angel Fund Programs
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2007. Lande Ajose, Casey MacGregor, and Leo Yan, with Michael Pih.
The report describes early findings from MDRC’s evaluation of the Dreamkeepers Emergency Financial Aid Program and the Angel Fund Program, two pilot programs for community college students who are at risk of dropping out because of unexpected financial crises.
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Enhancing Student Services at Lorain County Community College
Early Results from the Opening Doors Demonstration in Ohio
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2007. Susan Scrivener and Jenny Au.
This report describes early results from MDRC’s evaluation of the Opening Doors program at Lorain Country Community College in Elyria, Ohio. The program provided enhanced student services and a modest scholarship to low-income students to encourage them to stay in school and earn credentials.
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Enhancing Student Services at Owens Community College
Early Results from the Opening Doors Demonstration in Ohio
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2007. Susan Scrivener and Michael Pih.
This report presents the early results from MDRC’s evaluation of the Opening Doors program at Owens Community College in Toledo, Ohio. The two-semester program offered intensive student advising services and a modest scholarship to low-income students to encourage them to stay in school and earn credentials.
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A Whole ’Nother World
Students Navigating Community College
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2006. Alissa Gardenhire-Crooks, Herbert Collado, and Barbara Ray.
For this study, MDRC interviewed students at two colleges that are part of the Opening Doors Demonstration, a program to help community college students remain in school and succeed. The students spoke about their experiences on and off campus and the factors that help or hinder their progress in school.
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Paying for Persistence
Early Results of a Louisiana Scholarship Program for Low-Income Parents Attending Community College
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2006. Thomas Brock and Lashawn Richburg-Hayes
Funded by state welfare dollars, two community colleges in the New Orleans area offered performance-based scholarships and enhanced counseling to low-income parents, as part of MDRC’s Opening Doors demonstration. These early findings show the program had significant positive effects on academic achievement and rates of retention.
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Learning Communities and Student Success in Postsecondary Education
A Background Paper
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2005. Derek V. Price with Malisa Lee.
Interest in learning communities at colleges and universities is growing, as is early evidence of their impact on student success. This paper reviews the history, theory, and research on learning communities, describes how they operate, and proposes a multicollege demonstration project to build more conclusive evidence of their effectiveness.
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Building Learning Communities
Early Results from the Opening Doors Demonstration at Kingsborough Community College
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2005. Dan Bloom and Colleen Sommo.
Opening Doors Learning Communities, a program serving mostly low-income freshmen at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, NY, improved course and test pass rates, particularly in English.
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Promoting Student Success in Community College and Beyond
The Opening Doors Demonstration
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2005. Thomas Brock, Allen LeBlanc, with Casey MacGregor.
The Opening Doors Demonstration is designed to show how community colleges can help more low-income students remain in school and improve other outcomes, including degree attainment, labor market success, and personal and social well-being.
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Support Success
Services That May Help Low-Income Students Succeed in Community College
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2004. Rogéair Purnell and Susan Blank with Susan Scrivener and Reishma Seupersad.
Community colleges can pursue many strategies for enhancing student services, including offering “one-stop shopping,” which provides students with multiple services at the same time and place.
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Money Matters
How Financial Aid Affects Nontraditional Students in Community Colleges
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2003. Victoria Choitz, Rebecca Widom.
Examining federal, state, and institutional programs, the paper presents a framework for understanding challenges to securing comprehensive financial assistance for low-income working students.
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Changing Courses
Instructional Innovations That Help Low-Income Students Succeed in Community College
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2003. Richard Kazis, Marty Liebowitz.
This paper looks at curricular and program redesign strategies currently used by community colleges to speed nontraditional students’ advancement from lower levels of skill into credential programs and to shorten the time commitment required to earn a credential.
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Supporting CalWORKs Students at California Community Colleges
An Exploratory Focus Group Study
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2003. Laura Nelson, Rogéair Purnell.
The Opening Doors initiative is designed to help low-wage workers, at-risk youth, and recipients of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) earn college credentials as the pathway to better jobs and higher earnings. Concentrating on a program implemented in California, this report supplements efforts from an earlier Opening Doors focus group study to gain insights from low-income students on the factors that affect their ability to enroll in school and earn a college credential while balancing work and parenting responsibilities.
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Opening Doors
Students' Perspectives on Juggling Work, Family, and College
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2002. Lisa Matus-Grossman, Susan Gooden with Melissa Wavelet, Melisa Diaz, Reishma Seupersad.
The latest report from the Opening Doors project explores how to help low-wage workers move toward career advancement and higher wages by enrolling in and completing community college programs.
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Welfare Reform and Community Colleges
A Policy and Research Context
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2002. Thomas Brock, Lisa Matus-Grossman, Gayle Hamilton.
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Opening Doors to Earning Credentials
Impressions of Community College Access and Retention from Low-Wage Workers
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2001. Lisa Matus-Grossman, Susan Tinsley Gooden.
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Opening Doors
Expanding Educational Opportunities for Low-Income Workers
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Published with the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices.
2001. Susan Golonka, Lisa Matus-Grossman.
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