The COVID-19 pandemic brought the care crisis in the United States to the fore. Unprecedented closures of child care programs throughout 2020 placed a disproportionate burden on families, and mothers in particular. For parents enrolled in college or considering postsecondary enrollment at the time of the pandemic, the loss of child care services…

With open admission policies, reasonable tuition rates, and convenient locations, community colleges are a good choice for many who want to improve their career outlooks or explore college to see whether a four-year program is for them. Yet, no matter their reason for entering, most students do not leave with a degree. For many years, federal and…

We conduct the first long-term experimental evaluation of a need-based financial aid program, the privately funded Wisconsin Scholars Grant. Over multiple cohorts, the program failed to increase degree completion and graduate school enrollment up to 10 years after matriculation. The program did reduce time-to-degree for some students and modestly…

Considerable research has examined the personal factors and practices associated with transition-age youth with disabilities achieving higher employment rates and greater self-sufficiency as adults, but there is limited evidence on the longer-term effectiveness of these practices and services. This study examines the role of youth's use of…

State policies to promote postsecondary education historically have been devoted to funding and operating public colleges and universities. Increasingly, states are funding direct aid to their residents to attend public and private colleges within state borders. The majority of state aid is targeted based on the student's family income. States are…

This study provides an overview and a snapshot of new student orientation (NSO) and new student e-orientation (NSEO) programs, with a focus on the content and feature analysis of the NSEOs. It offers an overview of currently available NSO programs of 100 randomly selected community colleges from a master list of nearly 900 community colleges in…

In the context of ongoing discussions about student costs of non-credit developmental writing, this study reports on the affordances of Basic Writing as a traditional, stand-alone course at a career-focused, four-year university. Participants were students who took Basic Writing and Composition 1 between Fall 2011 and Spring 2013 (N = 2,693) in…

As part of our research on the community college baccalaureate (CCB), we studied the prospects of adopting and scaling CCB degrees in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Higher education leaders in these six Great Lakes states recognized the potential for CCB degrees to increase academic, geographic and financial access to…

The rising price of higher education and its implications for equity and accessibility have been extensively documented, but the material conditions of students' lives are often overlooked. Data from more than 30,000 two- and 4-year college students indicate that approximately half are food insecure, and recent estimates suggest that at least 20%…

There is a growing recognition of the need for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workers who provide diverse perspectives enabling companies to keep up with the demands of the 21st -century workforce. Creating a diverse workforce requires improving access to STEM education for historically underrepresented students,…

College graduation rates have been on the academic and political agenda. The United States graduation rate is 59%, however, 68% of nontraditional students do not graduate with baccalaureate degrees within the time frame of six years. Scholars are attributing the decreasing graduation rates to barriers encountered by nontraditional undergraduate…

Catholic educational institutions play an important role in educating Latino high achieving students. Latino students attending Catholic high schools are more likely to graduate and transition to college immediately following high school. Few studies have examined the outcomes of Latino students who attend Catholic colleges and universities and…

All across the country, leaders in colleges and universities are asking the same question: What can we do to improve student success, especially for the low-income students and students of color whose graduation rates often lag behind? This second practice guide: "Using Data to Improve Student Outcomes: Learning from Leading Colleges"…

In June 2020, the Wisconsin Policy Forum published "A Teacher Who Looks Like Me: Examining Racial Diversity in Wisconsin's Teacher Workforce and the Student-to-Teacher Pipeline." The impetus for that research was both the long-standing racial disparities in educational outcomes that have persisted in Wisconsin for decades and a growing…

This qualitative study examined first-year Interest Groups (FIGs) that resulted in higher graduation rates at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Participants in this study included eight former FIG participants from the academic years 2008-2011. This researcher created a questionnaire guided by Astin's theory of involvement, that analyzed…