About MDRC
Slaughter is a data manager in the Young Adults and Postsecondary Education policy area. He is working on three quantitative evaluations of community college programs that seek to improve outcomes for low-income and at-risk students: Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP), CUNY Start, and Finish Line. Before joining MDRC, Slaughter researched postsecondary education policy at Research for Action, the University of Michigan, and the Michigan Department of Education. He holds a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Michigan and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Texas at Tyler. He is a proud first-generation college graduate, which fuels his passion for postsecondary education research.
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MDRC Publications
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Other Publications
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Projects
For The Higher Education Randomized Controlled Trial project ( THE - RCT ), MDRC is creating the largest individual-participant database from higher education randomized controlled trials to date. THE - RCT will make standardized, deidentified data from more than 20 studies covering 50 institutions of higher education and 50,000 students available to...
Caitlin Anzelone, Michael J. Weiss, Rashida Welbeck, Rekha Balu, Colleen Sommo, Emily Marano, Austin SlaughterMDRC ’s Center for Applied Behavioral Science ( CABS ) and Postsecondary Education policy area launched The Finish Line: Graduation by Design to improve college completion rates using behavioral insights. Graduating from college is a challenge, particularly for low‐income and nontraditional students, who often face personal, institutional, and structural barriers to...
Many students enter postsecondary education underprepared academically, and the success rate for these students is low. At open access colleges (like community colleges), underprepared students are typically referred to developmental (or remedial) coursework, often in the form of multilevel, noncredit course sequences in reading, English, and math.
To help...
Colleen Sommo, Susan Scrivener, Michael J. Weiss, Michelle Ware, Michelle S. Manno, Alyssa Ratledge, Rebekah O'Donoghue, Austin Slaughter, Gilda AzurdiaNational attention is focused on increasing graduation rates at community colleges. Graduation rates are particularly low for students who come to campus underprepared for college-level work. Across the nation, between 60 and 70 percent of entering freshmen in community colleges enroll in developmental (or remedial) math, reading, or writing courses. Data show that...