As college promise programs proliferate across the United States with noted intentions to promote access through increased affordability, it is necessary to understand the relationship between these programs and other forms of financial aid, including loans. Using federal, state, and program-level data, we leverage a natural experiment to estimate…

Guided pathways reforms are emerging as a promising strategy for improving student outcomes and closing equity gaps at community colleges, but little is known about how the guided pathways approach can help address challenges facing adult students. This report discusses strategies that three Tennessee community colleges that have implemented…

This article reviews the unique opportunities and challenges related to establishing and maintaining a long-term community-university development partnership in a historic African American community. It highlights the significant benefits and costs generated by an interdisciplinary community development assistance project undertaken by a community…

Many states are passing "free" college plans, and policymakers at both the state and federal level continue to debate the merits of national "free college" or "debt-free college" proposals, also known as Promise programs. Both federal and state "free" college proposals are geared toward a policy objective of…

This article examines an ongoing university-community relationship that fuses innovative technology delivery, university-outreach research, and social work practice/research education into a unique, collaborative intervention to reduce homelessness. In doing so, we apply a social justice framework to homelessness, arguing that housing is a right…

The Tennessee Technology Center system has become something of a darling among college-completion advocates. Comprising 27 locations across the state, the system boasts graduation and job-placement rates that many colleges only dream of: 75 percent and 83 percent, respectively. Such achievements are even more noteworthy given the population the…

The Youth Villages Transitional Living program is intended to help youth who were formerly in foster care or juvenile justice custody, or who are otherwise unprepared for adult life, to make the transition to independent living. Youth Villages, which serves emotionally and behaviorally troubled young people, operates a number of programs in…

The purpose of this case study was to examine one learner's (Keira) personal trajectory in an online, transnational telecollaborative learning environment, focusing on how she negotiated (1) her own sense of identity,(2) her perspective on French and American cultures, and (3) the possibility of a transcultural dialogue. The data (observations,…

The demonstration research project initiated in 1966 sought to identify community needs through interviews with local citizens and county and municipal officials, and through distribution of 800 mailed questionnaires. Following a review of the project's accomplishments to date, the document presents a report of the 1975-77 Statewide priorities…

Involvement of the church in rural community life was investigated by examining the "Fifty-Year Index to Rural Sociology." Findings revealed that 43 separate articles were published from 1944 to 1977 under categories of community life (7 articles); ministers: elite control (4); attitudes (5); beliefs, practices (6); churches (6); church…

The challenge of producing the systemic changes that are needed to boost educational attainment and economic competitiveness across the country falls heavily on entities that coordinate public postsecondary institutions. Coordination of postsecondary education, whether of a single system of institutions or across an entire state, requires…

This is a report about a unique postsecondary education system, the Tennessee Technology Centers--a statewide system of 27 institutions providing a wide range of rigorous, one to two year, technical/occupational education programs at consistently high completion and placement rates in high skill and relatively high wage employment. This report…

The Tennessee Education Lottery Scholarship (TELS) program was designed to meet the unique needs of the state of Tennessee while also incorporating the hallmark elements of existing merit-based aid programs in other states. Developed through a process involving elected officials and members of the academic community, the TELS program aims to…

This paper discusses the characteristics of three community-based early childhood care and development support programs: the Community Mothers Program of Dublin, Ireland; the Maternal and Infant Health Outreach Workers Program of Tennessee; and the Mothers Inform Mothers Program of the Netherlands. The paper considers the general characteristics…

The Cooperative Leadership for Urban Education (CLUE) program, funded under Title III of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, tries to find a way of working with students in grades 5-9 that will get them vitally interested and involved in learning, that will develop in them genuine specific skills for continued learning, and that will…