About MDRC
Hill (he/him) works in MDRC’s Postsecondary Education Policy area, with a focus on improving access, achievement, and completion rates for community college students with low incomes. Past projects include Encouraging Additional Summer Enrollment (EASE), CUNY Start, and Men of Color College Achievement (MoCCA). Currently, Colin provides technical assistance on data-driven program management as part of the Scaling Up College Completion Efforts for Student Success (SUCCESS) project, manages data acquisition and processing on the long-term follow-up study of ASAP Ohio, and conducts methodological research as part of The Higher Education Randomized Control Trial (THE-RCT), which provides resources and tools for professionals in the field to improve postsecondary education research, including a restricted access file containing individual-level data on over 65,000 students from more than 30 RCTs. Additionally, Colin led the programming for the Intervention Return on Investment Tool, which launched in April 2022. Outside of his projects, Colin co-leads the Queer Affinity Group and the Affinity Group for Discussions of Data Science Ethics, and he serves as an elected representative on the bargaining team of Social Policy Workers United. Prior to joining MDRC in 2019, Colin worked in curriculum development and research at the Oceans of Data Institute, a workgroup at the global nonprofit Education Development Center dedicated to transforming education through data literacy. He graduated from Yale University with a bachelor’s degree in statistics and data science and education studies.
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MDRC Publications
Issue FocusMay, 2023In this blog post published by the National College Attainment Network, MDRC’s Colin Hill describes the findings from MDRC’s recent evaluation of the City University of New York’s ASAP student success program at three Ohio community colleges.
BriefSix-Year Findings from the ASAP Ohio Demonstration
April, 2023U.S. community colleges—which disproportionately serve students from low-income backgrounds—have very low graduation rates. In response, three Ohio community colleges implemented programs based on the City University of New York’s successful Accelerated Study in Associate Programs. After six years, the programs had a positive impact on graduation and earnings.
MethodologyDecember, 2022This paper, originally published in Evaluation Review, provides researchers with new information about the values of the key design parameters needed for planning randomized controlled trial evaluations of interventions in community colleges.
Issue FocusJuly, 2022This blog post looks at how community colleges participating in MDRC’s Scaling Up College Completion Efforts for Student Success (SUCCESS) project use data-driven program management to keep tabs on key performance measures in real time and then act when those measures aren’t moving in the right direction.
ReportEarly Implementation Findings from a Study of the Male Student Success Initiative
November, 2020Men of color complete college at lower rates than their fellow students. To help overcome this gap, many colleges have programs offering academic and social support to male students of color. This report summarizes MDRC’s evaluation of one such program at the Community College of Baltimore County.
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Other Publications
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Projects
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Inadequate social, emotional, and campus support
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Insufficient college preparation and academic achievement
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College administrators are better positioned than ever before to make decisions about adopting programs based on the effectiveness and cost of interventions. There is, however, a third piece of information critical to decision-making: the amount of revenue an intervention would generate at their college because of increased student retention...
Michael J. Weiss, John Diamond, Austin Slaughter, Tiffany Morton, Colin Hill, Makoto Toyoda, Stanley DaiFor The Higher Education Randomized Controlled Trial project (THE-RCT), MDRC has created the largest individual-participant database from higher education randomized controlled trials to date. THE-RCT makes standardized,...
Men of color bring a variety of strengths and assets to their college experience. However, research to date indicates that three primary hurdles inhibit college completion for many male students of color:
Colleen Sommo, Alexander Mayer, Alyssa Ratledge, Michelle Ware, Osvaldo Avila, Katie Beal, Melissa Wavelet, Leigh Parise, Colin Hill, Rae Walker, Austin Slaughter, Hannah Dalporto, Elena Serna-Wallender, Stanley DaiMDRC’s Scaling Up College Completion Efforts for Student Success (SUCCESS) seeks to improve graduation rates for traditionally underserved students at two- and four-year colleges, by helping states and institutions align their resources with evidence-driven practices. SUCCESS ...
Caitlin Anzelone, Michael J. Weiss, Melissa Boynton, Xavier Alemañy, Colin Hill, Camielle Headlam, Dorota Biedzio RizikThe Encouraging Additional Summer Enrollment (EASE) Project is a new initiative to improve community college persistence and completion in Ohio. The project will apply insights from behavioral science to design targeted messaging and financial incentives that encourage students to enroll in courses during the summer term.
In the U.S.,...
Colleen Sommo, Michael J. Weiss, Michelle Ware, Melissa Boynton, Michelle S. Manno, Alyssa Ratledge, Rebekah O'Donoghue, Colin HillWhile the U.S. has made strides in increasing college access among low-income students, college completion has remained low. Graduation rates are particularly stagnant among our nation’s community colleges, which enroll a large number of low-income and nontraditional college students. For example, only 20 percent of full-time, first-time...
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...
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