Nearly half of students who enter college do not graduate. The majority of efforts to increase college completion have focused on supporting students before or soon after they enter college, yet many students drop out after making significant progress towards their degree. In this paper, we report results from a multi-year, large-scale…

In 2019, MDRC launched the Scaling Up College Completion Efforts for Student Success (SUCCESS) project to improve college completion rates for traditionally underserved students, such as students from low-income backgrounds and students of color, at community and broad-access colleges (those that have open or minimally selective admissions…

According to a recent What Works Clearinghouse review, the most effective dropout-prevention strategy is to directly connect schoolwork to students' career aspirations. Towpath Trail High School in Akron is a real life embodiment of that strategy. Author Lyman Millard of the Bloomwell Group offers a fascinating look at a school that engages…

This article exploits a natural experiment to estimate the effects of need-based aid policies on first-year college persistence rates. In fall 2006, Ohio abruptly adopted a new state financial aid policy that was significantly more generous than the previous plan. Using student-level data and very narrowly defined sets of students, I estimate a…

There is a new endangered species in this country--the black male. The education of the black male in the United States has recently garnered much-needed national attention. Two national reports in 2010 have heightened the awareness of the fact that the black male student is not successfully navigating our public school systems, often dropping…

A study was conducted to identify the characteristics of high risk students in selected Ohio Adult Basic Education (ABE) programs, and to describe the characteristics of the programs in order to identify program characteristics related to the retention of participants. Nine programs, selected to represent programs of various sizes (small, medium,…

In fiscal 1973, Ohio elected to concentrate training for staff in adult basic education (ABE) in eight cities. A review of records indicated that 143 ABE teachers in 5 of those cities attended 1 to 4 workshops that year. This study sought to answer three questions about these teachers: their long-term (7 years or more) retention in adult…

An analysis of Ohio's Learning, Earning, and Parenting (LEAP) program focused on the first 18 months of program operations. The 12 randomly selected research counties contained about two-thirds of the statewide teen population targeted by LEAP. The analysis relied on field research, supplemented by data collected from county human service agencies…

Graduation, Reality, and Dual-Role Skills (GRADS) is a vocational home economics program in Ohio for pregnant students and young parents in grades 7 through 12 in junior high schools, senior high schools, and vocational schools. Goals of the program are to: (1) increase the likelihood the participants will remain in school during pregnancy, after…

"High School Redirection" is an alternative high school program for youth considered at risk of dropping out. The program emphasizes basic skills development (with a particular focus on reading skills) and offers limited extra-curricular activities. The schools operate in economically disadvantaged areas and serve students who have…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate vocational education at the senior high school level in terms of both private and social costs and returns. Data on costs of vocational training and potential earnings with and without vocational training were used to estimate rates of returns on vocational education. Findings of the study indicate that…

The effect of four Occupational Work Adjustment (OWA) programs on risk factors leading to students dropping out of high school was assessed. Data were gathered from four OWA teachers in high schools in Northwest Ohio; information was provided for 27 individual students and 2 groups of 28 students each for the 1992-93 school year. The following…

This study followed up 79,812 vocational job training completers and 316 vocational job training leavers in Ohio for the school year 1981-82. Data were gathered in January 1983 for the 1982 graduating class. The results of the study showed that economic benefits resulted from completing a vocational job training program. Even with the severely…

The effectiveness of a secondary alternative school for at-risk students was studied with respect to the development and implementation of certain components that are generally thought to be critical to the success of at-risk education. The Hamilton Optional Program for Education (HOPE) school of Hamilton (Ohio) was the study site. Twenty percent…

Project HAND-UP (Helping Adolescents Needing Direction-Unlimited Partnership) was a 2-year program to enhance dropout prevention services to at-risk youth by establishing a closer linkage between Job Training Partnership (JTPA)-Ohio and the Ohio Department of Education's Occupational Work Adjustment (OWA) programs. The project's major activities…