Online program managers (OPMs) are third-party companies that work with colleges and universities to develop, launch, and deliver online learning. Despite the prevalence of these companies in higher education, cost details are often buried or asserted with legal protections as trade secrets or business models unavailable for public review.3…

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…

Most states in the United States operate their public preschool programs in a mixed delivery system that serves children in local education agencies (LEAs) as well as non-LEA settings, such as Head Start agencies, child care centers, private schools, and family child care homes. To inform state preschool administrators and policymakers as they…

The authors discuss a curriculum integration effort that a school of business piloted recently. This effort was aimed at integrating the core functions (finance, marketing, management, and operations) so that undergraduate students would better appreciate the full impact of functional decisions on each other and in achieving the corporation's…

This paper is the first to investigate the costs of institution-wide reforms at community colleges. Drawing on data from 12 community colleges implementing comprehensive guided pathways reforms, I use the ingredients method to analyze the resources required to implement such reforms and examine their feasibility and affordability, as well as their…

As community gardens expand across the U.S., Extension professionals can support them not only in horticultural education but also in planning and organization. Knowledge of community garden management is helpful in this regard. Existing research focuses on outcomes and criteria for successful gardens, but is less clear about how community gardens…

In this paper, the authors draw on empirical data from CCRC's Scaling Innovation project to examine trends in developmental education instructional reform and outline a framework for reform adoption and adaptation. The paper's findings are based on two qualitative data sources: a scan of developmental education reforms that involved changes to…

The author presents the findings of a study that explored teachers' motivations toward and perspectives of the residential environmental education (EE) program at the New Jersey School of Conservation (NJSOC). Thirty-five program coordinators were administered a 24-item instrument that explored the variables of interest. The findings revealed that…