In the past few decades, the cost of college has risen significantly, while federal, state, and institutional financial aid and family income have remained stagnant or declined (Goldrick-Rab, 2018). As a result, many college students struggle to afford the full cost of college attendance and may experience basic needs insecurity, including the…

Home visiting connects expectant parents, new caregivers, and their young children with a support person, called a home visitor. The home visitor meets regularly with the family, develops a relationship with them, and supports them to achieve their goals and meet their needs. To reach the thousands of additional families who could benefit from…

The purpose of this guide is to illuminate best practices for meaningful engagement of youth in Community Schools and to recognize youth voice as a community asset that can help advance more equitable school systems. Youth voice plays an important role in redesigning how public education functions. The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted education and…

Much attention has been focused on the importance of providing physical and mental health services to students in educational environments in recent years. Millions of students receive school-based health services, and for many students, schools are their first and only option to receive health care. State policymakers have a lot to consider in…

Funding for community colleges varies significantly, even within the same state. Several factors account for these differences, including more generous funding for smaller institutions to compensate for their higher costs per student, unequal local funding from property tax revenues, and political forces. In theory, this variation could lead to…

Innovation in education is vital for responding to emerging challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and for building progress on longstanding challenges in schools. The infusion of substantial, highly flexible pots of federal relief dollars created an opportunity to pilot new programs and initiatives. Many states and districts opted to invest…

Promise programs are proliferating across the United States, with wide variation in their design. Using national data on 33 Promise programs affecting single, 2-year colleges, this study examines program effects on first-time, full-time college enrollments of students by race/ethnicity and gender classification. Results suggest Promise programs…

Over the last several years, Achieving the Dream (ATD) has engaged in a number of initiatives to help community colleges build their capacity to ensure that more students can reach their education and career goals. During the course of that work, ATD has come to see clearly that enhancing and integrating student support services is central to…

This article discusses Promise Scholarships in community colleges and sources of funding. The following community colleges and their scholarships are mentioned in this article: (1) Oregon Promise, Oregon; (2) Ventura College Promise, California; (3) Kalamazoo Promise, Michigan; (4) Pittsburgh Promise, Pennsylvania; (5) SEED Scholarship, Delaware;…

Over a two-year period, six colleges involved in the Working Students Success Network (WSSN) initiative received financial support and technical assistance from ATD to identify key financial challenges their students face, develop specific strategies to address those challenges, and provide feedback on lessons learned from the work to be shared…

This article examines the current literature and state legislation of statewide "free tuition" promise programs. The purpose of this paper was to analyze state free community college programs, legislation, scholarly literature, and state websites to understand program structures, funding sources, and student-eligibility requirements. The…

For many low-income students and students of color, financial and other barriers can derail their efforts to complete a postsecondary credential. In 2014, the Working Students Success Network (WSSN) was launched by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Lumina Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Kresge Foundation, MetLife Foundation, and Bank of America.…

As community colleges across the country look for ways to promote student success, the need for scaling effective approaches is critical. This guide builds on a framework of four phases of scaling developed in Job For the Future's (JFF's) previous publication, "Thinking Big: A Framework for States on Scaling Up Community College…

Community colleges are mission-driven institutions committed to access and community needs. They serve a diverse population: The majority of students are employed, so they have to balance work with school; about one-third are first-generation, so they are navigating an unfamiliar system for the first time in their families; and 15% are single…

This paper reviews recent evidence on the labor market returns to credit accumulation, certificates, and associate degrees from community colleges. Evidence is collated from estimates of earnings gaps across college students using large-scale, statewide administrative datasets from eight states. Six of these states were partners of the Center for…