Student food insecurity is associated with lower grades, depression, higher perceived stress and lower graduation rates. Campuses across the country are responding to the problem in a variety of ways, including distribution of food directly to students through food pantries. This research is based on a national survey of campus food pantries to…

Community colleges enroll a diverse set of students who often face challenges meeting their basic needs. This report describes the potential benefits and costs of one low-cost and relatively light-touch tool that colleges might use to increase students' access to basic needs assistance. The authors focus on the Findhelp platform, which is modeled…

Research for Action (RFA) in partnership with the University of Texas at Austin is engaged in a five-year mixed-methods study of the reforms associated with California AB 705. Over the course of the study, our team will assess the implementation, impact, and cost effectiveness of reforms associated with the law. This second interim report,…

The Aid Like A Paycheck student survey was designed to shed light on students' academic and financial attitudes, behaviors, and circumstances over the course of a semester. This supplement to MDRC's final report on Aid Like A Paycheck describes the survey, response rates, and responses to each survey item at three community college systems: two in…

Senior year of high school can be a pivotal time in a young person's life. For some, it is the last step on the path to college and work. For others, finding stable employment or attending university after high school is far from guaranteed. Urban Alliance, headquartered in Washington, DC, helps students at risk of becoming disconnected from work…

Students with merit-based scholarships and strong high school GPAs typically have high retention rates. Yet, many high ability students did not need to study in high school, and never developed effective academic skills. Such students may expect to excel in college with the same limited effort. Unfortunately, institutions may unintentionally…

In 2003, Lumina Foundation for Education launched a bold, multiyear, national initiative called "Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count," to help students stay in school and succeed. The initiative is focused particularly on students who have faced the most barriers to success, including low-income students and students of color.…

The project described in this report was piloted at Florida Community College during fall 1985 to review policies and practices that can facilitate the retention of students, to propose a system of data collection and dissemination designed to provide routine, useful information about the retention of students, and to establish communications…

The implementation and evaluation of a project at Xavier University of Louisiana that was designed to increase performance and academic persistence in entry-level mathematics and science courses are described. The University's CAUSE Project was a cooperative effort by the departments of biology, chemistry, mathematics, and physics. Strategies of…