Early Findings from a CUNY Start Evaluation
To help City University of New York (CUNY) students referred to developmental (remedial) education, CUNY Start delays their enrollment in a degree program for one semester of intensive instruction. This report describes students’ progress through developmental education after one semester, and college enrollment in the semester thereafter.
Early Experiences of Three Institutions
This report from the Community College Research Center and MDRC describes how three institutions — University of North Carolina, Charlotte; California State University, Fresno; and Montgomery County Community College in Pennsylvania — are implementing comprehensive, technology-based advising reforms, including detailed examples of new advising practices, outreach methods, and messages to students.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Job Corps program provides education and training to disadvantaged young people. It offers high school education services combined with career and technical training in a residential setting.
Many Promise programs — which help local students afford to enroll in college — are looking to add new forms of support to help students address their barriers to college success, but worry about the cost of these new components. MDRC’s College Promise Success Initiative’s Cost Calculator prices out various program designs.
Testimony of Alexander Mayer, Deputy Director, Postsecondary Education, MDRC, Before the New Jersey State Assembly Higher Education Committee
On May 7, Alex Mayer discussed the challenge of developmental education for low-income college students in New Jersey and nationwide, citing recent innovations and growing evidence about what works to overcome barriers to college success. The strongest programs integrate several strategies, combining opportunity and obligation to address multiple student barriers.
The Detroit Promise Path
A student success program for Detroit Promise scholarship recipients combines coaching, a monthly incentive, summer outreach to keep students engaged, and a management information system used to communicate with students and track their progress. This Issue Focus provides more detail about the program model and shares early implementation lessons.
Insights from the LATIDO Roundtable
Latinos are enrolling in California colleges in rising numbers, but their outcomes lag behind those of white students. The Latino Academic Transfer and Institutional Degree Opportunities project is examining the approaches taken by Hispanic-Serving Institutions in California to improve the rates at which they transfer to universities and complete college.
Latinos are the largest and fastest-growing ethnic group in California, and their college enrollment numbers continue to rise faster than those of other groups in the state. But there are gaps in college outcomes between Latinos and white and Asian students, typically associated with disparities in socioeconomic status, high school preparation, and college guidance.
MDRC has developed a body of rigorous evidence on interventions designed to help low-income college students succeed. This issue brief draws six lessons from that work for colleges and policymakers as they seek to improve college completion rates.
MDRC’s College Promise Success Initiative provides technical assistance to College Promise and Free College programs interested in promoting success in college by implementing evidence-based student support practices.
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