For 15 years, Complete College America (CCA) has been building movements for scaled systemic change and transforming institutions. While CCA has expanded their efforts over the past 15 years, they have studied the best ideas and co-designed the most promising practices to move the needle on college completion. They have learned a lot about how to…

Career and technical education (CTE) is revolutionizing the United States education system. These modern programs are being created across the country, and there is a need to ensure they are designed in a way that leads to students successfully graduating high school. The problem was a lower rate of students graduating from secondary education in…

In the United States, postsecondary educational attainment positively correlates to the probability of a person being employed and the amount of money they earn (U.S. Department of Labor, 2018). Financial aid programs attempt to help students afford, remain in, and finish their postsecondary pursuits, but Levin (1989) asserted some forms of…

For years researchers have stressed the importance of implementing a Culturally Responsive System to improve outcomes for Black students (Culturally Responsive Sustaining Education, 2018). It is important to shift towards a perspective that sees everyone from an asset-based perspective The narrative that was created throughout time was that Black…

School systems across the country, like those in Oregon, continually attempt to improve their students' academic outcomes. Unfortunately, these costly efforts often fail to create lasting change. One factor in many of these failed improvement efforts is the lack of successfully implementing research-based practices (RBPs) at state and local…

Monitoring Advising Analytics to Promote Success (MAAPS)is a multi-institutional project of the University Innovation Alliance (UIA) initially funded and supported by a US Department of Education First in the World Grant to Georgia State, the lead UIA member on this project. MAAPS is a large-scale randomized-controlled trial designed to validate…

With more than 290 Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs across 131 high schools, the NYC Department of Education (NYCDOE) oversees one of the largest and most diverse CTE systems in the country. In the last year, NYC's mayor and NYCDOE leadership have made a number of new investments in Career and Technical Education. The Research…

Black male community college students have the lowest retention and completion rates among any racial group (National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, 2017). During this dissertation, I examined the root causes of Black male community college students' low graduation rates through a systematic literature review, and then identified mentoring…

An account of a persistently failing New York City high school's rapid transformation. Urban Assembly School for Green Careers had a 39% graduation rate in 2013 and ranked in the bottom 1% of high schools citywide. As a transformation strategy, the school employed an innovative educational design known as Learning Cultures, which distributes…

With the continual decline of high school graduation rates in South Carolina, there is a need for high schools to look at alternative pathways to graduation. Many of the current alternatives offered to students remove them from the high school setting or interactions with the student body. This study focused on an alternative pathway to…

Guided pathways, a program that aims to improve college completion and student success through remodeling of the student journey, supports learners in choosing a program of study, ideally resulting in transfer to a four-year school or the start of a lucrative career with a two-year degree. Colleges that employ a guided pathways model are seeing…

This article highlights the College Level Examination Program -- or CLEP -- from the College Board, as another pathway for students to earn college credits toward degree completion. The renewal of interest in alternative pathways to degree attainment has come about in response to yet another round of national studies reporting declining rates of…

Community colleges in the United States, which serve a disproportionate number of students from low-income backgrounds, can provide a valuable pathway toward well-paying careers. However, graduation rates at community colleges are very low--among first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students who enter public two-year schools, only 29 percent…

In Chicago, despite an increase in high school graduates and college enrollment, only one in four community college students graduate within three years. COVID-19 exacerbated longstanding barriers to college success faced by students from low-income backgrounds, as well as for Black, Latino, and Indigenous students. Without proactive interventions…

This report examines the implementation and outcomes of personalized, competency-based learning in the Arizona Personalized Learning Network (AZPLN) districts. The study conducted by Research for Action (RFA) analyzed survey data from students and teachers, as well as publicly available school-level outcomes data to assess the progress and impact…