Through their work at the University of Southern California (USC) with students in a face-to-face mentoring program, the authors understood that many qualified low-income and/or first generation students were slipping through the cracks when it came time to apply to college. These were students who had done well in school and had met college…

In this report, the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office (Chancellor's Office) presents its findings, evaluations and analysis of the success and efficacy of the face-to-face community college programs that are being offered to incarcerated students inside California state prisons. The report also discusses barriers and challenges…

Over the past six years, the Pullias Center for Higher Education has been engaged in research designed to better understand the potential of digital tools to increase access to college. Their most recent $3.2 million "First in the World" (FITW) federal grant has enabled the Center to implement and evaluate an online game-based…

This brief studies California's introduction of the Early Assessment Program to bridge the gap between K-12 educational standards and postsecondary education requirements, similar to the Common Core State Standards movement.

Migrant students are among the most disadvantaged of any groups in the United States, yet little is understood about factors that facilitate their college access. College access outreach programs rarely collect data on whether and where their students go to college. This longitudinal study tracked the college-going behaviors of migrant students…

The primary research question for this project was whether a streamlined, relatively inexpensive, counseling-based program that assists low-income high school students with the college and financial application processes can significantly increase college enrollment rates. The intervention was designed to test the hypothesis that lack of…

This article describes the efforts of California State University, Northridge to use of an open house event to increase the enrollment rate of high school and transfer students who have received acceptance letters to enter the university. Competition among publicly supported universities for their fair share of entering freshman and transfer…