About MDRC
Walker is a resource management analyst in MDRC’s Postsecondary Education policy area. They help manage several projects aimed at improving academic achievement and completion for low-income community college students, including Scaling up College Completion Efforts for Student Success (SUCCESS) and the Replication of CUNY’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP). Prior to joining MDRC, Walker worked with the ACLU’s National Security Project and as a special assistant to the Director of the Center for Democracy. Walker previously held roles with the Legal Aid Society, the Center for Court Innovation, and the Vera Institute of Justice’s Center on Sentencing and Corrections as an Arthur Liman Summer Fellow. They graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Barnard College of Columbia University in political science and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies.
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MDRC Publications
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Other Publications
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Projects
Michelle Ware, Alexander Mayer, Colleen Sommo, Leigh Parise, Elena Serna-Wallender, Jálynn Castleman-Smith, Shawna Anderson, Rae Walker, Jalencia Wade, Melissa Wavelet, Katie Beal, Melissa Boynton, Diane WrenThe COVID -19 pandemic has dramatically affected colleges’ operations and students’ educational experiences, severely strained budgets, and created unprecedented financial and emotional stress for students, faculty, and staff. As colleges adapt to an evolving landscape, they need immediate solutions to support and retain students, as well as to continue to focus on...
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...
Under the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security ( CARES ) Act of 2020, Congress created the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund ( HEERF ) as the first-ever federal emergency aid program in higher education.
MDRC , in collaboration with the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators and the Student Affairs Administrators in...
Colleen Sommo, Alexander Mayer, Alyssa Ratledge, Michelle Ware, Osvaldo Avila, Katie Beal, Melissa Wavelet, Leigh Parise, Kriti Singh, Colin Hill, Rae Walker, Austin Slaughter, Hannah Dalporto, Elena Serna-WallenderMDRC ’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...
Colleen Sommo, Michael J. Weiss, Michelle Ware, Melissa Boynton, Michelle S. Manno, Alyssa Ratledge, Rebekah O'Donoghue, Rae Walker, Camielle Headlam, 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 degree-seeking students at...