About MDRC
Hill 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. Recent projects include Encouraging Additional Summer Enrollment (EASE), CUNY Start, Men of Color College Achievement (MoCCA), and Scaling up College Completion Efforts for Student Success (SUCCESS). Additionally, Colin is involved with 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. 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
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
For 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, deidentified data from more than 25 studies covering 50 institutions of higher education and 65,000 students securely available to...
Rashida Welbeck, Michelle S. Manno, Oscar Cerna, Edith Yang, Melissa Boynton, Dominique Dukes, Colin Hill, Kalito LunaMen 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:
Inadequate social, emotional, and campus support
Insufficient college preparation and academic achievement
Nonacademic barriers to persistence...
Colleen Sommo, Alexander Mayer, Alyssa Ratledge, Michelle Ware, Osvaldo Avila, Katie Beal, Melissa Wavelet, Leigh Parise, Kriti Singh, Colin Hill, Sienna WalkerMDRC ’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 combines components from multiple programs that have proven themselves to be...
The 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., higher education...
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...