The Keystone Education Yields Success (KEYS) program is a welfare-to-work program in Pennsylvania meant to promote financial independence through education. Across the community colleges in the state of Pennsylvania, the KEYS program has often allowed financially disadvantaged students to succeed on par with - and often surpass - their non-KEYS…

In Pennsylvania, subgrantee Philadelphia Works, Inc. partnered with JEVS Human Services to implement the National Health Emergency (NHE) demonstration grant. JEVS Human Services offers both employment and training services and behavioral health treatment and recovery services. By developing partnerships with behavioral health providers, the…

District leaders seeking to close schools often frame decisions as "right-sizing" or "modernizing the footprint" of the district. Historical influences such as population and economic shifts and desegregation during the civil rights era, and more recent factors like deteriorating building conditions, school performance…

The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry (L&I) partnered with the Pennsylvania State College of Medicine (Penn State) to create a Project Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) series for employers. The ECHO model, which originated in the medical field, provides virtual clinics led by expert specialist teams to discuss…

"Excelencia in Education" brings to a national audience evidence-based practices situated at higher education institutions and community-based organizations across the country that are intentionally serving Latino students. The 2023 "Examples of Excelencia: What Works for Latino Students in Higher Education" selection committee…

The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association's (SHEEO) "Communities of Practice" project builds upon SHEEO's ongoing efforts to measure the capacity and effective use of state postsecondary data systems and provides states with opportunities to develop solutions to common issues with those systems. The sixth Community of…

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;…

Nearly a quarter of all undergraduate students in the U.S. are parents. All parents, especially younger parents and those returning to school after years in the workforce, face a system that was not designed to accommodate their needs as caretakers. The needs of student parents have become even more acute during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has…

Pennsylvania's public four-year colleges currently confront a funding and enrollment crisis, with three of the most distressed Universities in northern and western Pennsylvania regions that lack community colleges. This crisis presents Pennsylvania, and its state legislators: do they want to continue the policies of the past three decades, which…

Raising incomes and increasing opportunity hinges critically on access to post-secondary education and training. If Pennsylvania does not expand access to higher education to more of its citizens, the authors argue, the Commonwealth's economy will suffer and living standards will lag growth elsewhere. With a modest and smart investment,…

Using an autoethnographic approach, this dissertation explores the path taken by a person who serves a unique population of individuals--people who not only have more than one disability, but in addition, are unable to communicate using verbal (spoken) speech. Starting with a recap of the history of the use and subsequent oppression of American…

Recent media reporting and research suggest that regional comprehensive universities (RCUs) and other postsecondary institutions may play an integral role in the welfare of rural regions, yet empirical research on the regional service of rural postsecondary institutions is limited. The purpose of this study was to examine how a single RCU serves…

This study examines dual enrollment activities and their impact with a focus on equitable recruitment, persistence, and targeted success mechanisms for Black students and students from low-income families. The lived experiences of four former students from diverse racial and socio-economic backgrounds, and the perspectives of ten dual enrollment…

To meet current federal regulations and provide the opportunity for individuals to receive services in the least restrictive environments, states are focusing on providing day habilitation services in inclusive community environments, rather than traditional congregate facility-based programs. The two main services of day habilitation focus on…

Every adolescent faces challenges as they navigate their teenage years, but for some these challenges imperil their ability to complete their education. While these four students' experiences are dramatically different, they have one thing in common: high school didn't work for them, meaning that each faced long odds of ever attaining a diploma,…