Open-access colleges are an important pathway to economic mobility for millions of Americans. But graduation rates at these colleges are low--for example, only 36 percent of first-time, full-time freshmen at community colleges graduate within three years. Over the last two decades, MDRC and others have conducted research to build the evidence base…

Community colleges and broad-access universities (those with minimally selective admissions policies) provide an opportunity for students across the United States to attain postsecondary degrees and economic mobility. However, graduation rates from such colleges are often low and there are many obstacles that can be difficult to overcome,…

The contribution of the traditionally black institutions (TBIs) to the undergraduate education of blacks in 20 states was studied, with attention to trends in enrollments and degrees from 1970-1982. From 1970 to 1976, the number of black full-time undergraduates almost doubled in 17 southern states and Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Ohio. In 1970,…

Two quantitative enrollment projection techniques and the methods used by researchers at the Ohio Board of Regents (OBR) are discussed. Two quantitative approaches that are typically used for enrollment projections are curve-fitting techniques and causal models. Many state forecasters use curve-fitting techniques, a popular approach because only…