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Early Results from the Performance-Based Scholarship Demonstration in Ohio
Low-income parents at three community colleges in Ohio were offered a cash incentive, contingent on meeting academic benchmarks, to enhance their progress in school. For the first cohort, the performance-based scholarship program increased full-time enrollment and the number of credits attempted and earned, while reducing educational debt.
Using Earnings Supplements to Improve Employment Retention and Advancement Programs in Texas and the United Kingdom
Although much is known about how to help welfare recipients find jobs, there is less hard evidence about what can be done to help current and former recipients and other low-wage workers stay employed or advance in the labor market. This paper looks closely at one strategy — providing earnings supplements, or stipends, to current and former welfare recipients who maintain stable full-time employment — that was used at sites in Texas and in the United Kingdom.
Issues in the Reauthorization of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
In testimony before the Senate Finance Committee, MDRC President Gordon Berlin describes recent trends in TANF, particularly during the economic downturn, and discusses what research and experience have to tell say about moving forward with the reauthorization of the federal welfare program.
An important first hurdle for voluntary programs is recruiting and retaining eligible participants. This report describes how ten Supporting Healthy Marriage programs focused on developing effective marketing strategies, keeping couples engaged in the program, and building management systems. These efforts resulted in encouraging early levels of participation by low-income couples.
This report seeks to answer two policy questions: whether providing subsidies to families whose incomes are just over the state’s eligibility limit affects their child care and employment outcomes, and whether extending the length of time before families must reapply for subsidies affects the receipt of subsidies and related outcomes.
This paper is the first step in a study of instrumental variables analysis with randomized trials to estimate the effects of settings on individuals. The goal of the study is to examine the strengths and weaknesses of the approach and present them in ways that are broadly accessible to applied quantitative social scientists.
The Impact of Supplemental Literacy Courses for Struggling Ninth-Grade Readers
Over the course of ninth grade, two supplemental literacy courses modestly improved students’ reading comprehension skills and helped them perform better academically in their course work. However, these benefits did not persist in the following school year, when students were no longer receiving the supplemental support.
This final report of a two-year evaluation is intended to help states determine how to structure child care subsidy programs. Focusing on how much families should be required to contribute when they receive child care subsidies, the study examined the effects of reduced copayments on subsidy use, employment and earnings, and receipt of public assistance.
How Much Do Achieving the Dream Colleges Spend — and from What Resources — to Become Data-Driven Institutions?
This report analyzes the experiences of five community colleges that participate in Lumina Foundation’s Achieving the Dream initiative and the investments they made in implementing an institutional improvement process aimed at increasing students’ success. The report examines how, where, and with what resources these colleges supported their reforms, as well as the key activities driving their overall expenditures.
An Impact Study at Hillsborough Community College
A random assignment study of learning communities that linked a developmental reading course and a “college success” course finds that faculty collaboration and curricular integration increased over time. Overall, the program had no impact on students’ academic success, but evidence suggests that it had some positive effects for the last cohort of students in the study.
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