Lessons from Two Decades of Research and Technical Assistance
Colleges support students with academic and other types of advising, counseling, or coaching. Some schools enhance those services by reducing adviser caseloads and providing more comprehensive, frequent guidance, which can improve students’ semester-to-semester retention and average credits earned. This brief describes important lessons on designing and implementing those services.
Career and Technical Education Connects the Dots
The economic recession triggered by the global pandemic has magnified the need for high-quality programs that can help students acquire the skills, training, and postsecondary credentials they need to thrive in the workplace. Here are some programs that studies show improved academic outcomes and increased earnings.
What States and Colleges Need to Know
Colleges, researchers, and advocates believe innovation and change are needed in developmental (remedial) education, because developmental courses have low success rates and because many of their students ultimately drop out. This brief summarizes research on developmental education and provides summaries of findings and implications for state and college practices.
In this commentary, originally published in Community College Daily, President Marcia Ballinger of Lorain County Community College describes how Lorain’s comprehensive student success program, SAIL, has persevered during the pandemic — and offered lessons for school’s overall response to COVID-19.
Rural higher education has historically been neglected by the research community. There has been little evidence produced to inform the field of “what works” in rural colleges, what different sets of concerns rural students and their families face, or whether nationally recognized best practices are relevant for rural institutions. Homegrown, locally developed...
How CUNY Start Reshaped Instruction for Students Referred to Developmental Mathematics
Using data from interviews, classroom observations, an instructor survey, and curricular materials, this paper describes four key features of the CUNY Start mathematics instructional approach, paying particular attention to how these features differ from traditional developmental education.
Learning from CUNY Start
This paper describes the professional development model used in CUNY Start, a program developed at the City University of New York to support entering students identified as academically underprepared in literacy and mathematics.
Many schools are using technology-based tools to generate career recommendations and supplement the capabilities of their guidance departments. MDRC has partnered with two technology companies to test whether their career-advising software programs are viable tools for equitably supporting students as they identify and pursue future careers.
In this commentary, which originally appeared in Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, MDRC’s Alex Mayer and Alyssa Ratledge describe evidence-backed strategies that colleges can employ this fall to help students stay engaged.
This paper summarizes ASAP’s long-term effects and the educational investment in students associated with its services. The program helped students graduate faster, boosted graduation rates by 30 percent, and increased the financial aid students received.
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