MDRC is pleased to provide testimony on college access and completion to the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance. Access to college has increased substantially over the last 50 years, but student success--defined as the combination of academic success and degree or certificate completion--has not kept pace. Student success,…

Since 1964, the Federal Work-Study (FWS) program has provided funds to subsidize the wages of student employees, but it has never been studied directly. I use an instrumental variables difference-in-difference framework with administrative data from West Virginia to identify causal effects, comparing eligible and ineligible students across…

This annual newsletter contains updates on the latest Community College Research Center (CCRC) research, new publications and details of upcoming presentations at major conferences. The feature article in this issue, "Strategies for Increasing Student Success," by Thomas Bailey, summarizes the discussion found in the CCRC Assessment of Evidence…

Financed by the College Work Study Program (administered by the Office of Economic Opportunity), college students who were largely from lower-class homes, tutored in the College Discovery and Development (CDDP) High School Centers in New York City. The tutors, recruited from the City University of New York (CUNY) system had, on the whole, a…

The effects of combining full-time on-the-job learning with full-time course work were examined for a group of 26 students enrolled in the University Year for Action Program. Although students perceived the agency learning environments more positively that parallel classroom learning environments, program participation had little impact on concept…

This review of the connection between student financial aid and student access to and success in higher education draws on existing research on these issues and makes recommendations for national policy on student aid and higher education. The resulting recommendations are: (1) create a new federal strategy, the College Success Program (CSP) that…

Four federal programs were investigated for inconsistencies in awarding financial aid to college students: the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, Basic Educational Opportunity Grants, College Work-Study Program, and National Direct Student Loan Program. Their methods for determining student need and their legislative histories are…

This report examines best practices in the delivery of Student Support Services (SSS), one of the three Special Programs for Disadvantaged Students known as the TRIO programs. Data have shown that participation in student support services has a positive effect on student outcomes, but many participants do not receive enough services to receive…