As the wages of high school graduates plummet, postsecondary education and training has become critical to obtaining a living-wage job. Obtaining an associate's degree or higher has the greatest potential to produce long-lasting increases in individual earnings. However, recent studies have shown that shorter-term credentials, which may take only…

What works to help community college students progress academically? This brief synthesizes 20 years of rigorous research by MDRC, presenting new evidence about key attributes of community college interventions that are positively related to larger impacts on students' academic progress. Findings: Findings are based on a synthesis of evidence from…

Community colleges provide postsecondary education to millions of students in the United States each year, but their graduation rates are low. Many community colleges have implemented interventions to help students persist in college and earn degrees. MDRC has studied many such interventions; several of them improved students' academic outcomes,…

Millions of students leave college every year before earning a degree. At community colleges, only a third of full-time students graduate within three years. How can school administrators help students stay in school and eventually graduate? Higher education institutions commonly offer students advising services to help them develop the academic…

As a partner with the City University of New York (CUNY) on the Transfer Opportunity Project, MDRC's Center for Applied Behavioral Science (CABS) team used behavioral mapping to help identify the malleable factors (that is, the factors subject to change) that impede student transfer. MDRC and CUNY researchers conducted nearly 50 interviews and…

Colleges support students with advising, counseling, or coaching in academics and other skills they need to succeed in school. Some colleges enhance those services through reduced adviser caseloads and more comprehensive, frequent guidance, which can improve students' semester-to-semester retention and average credits earned. This overview…

Integrated Planning and Advising for Student Success (iPASS) is an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support colleges seeking to incorporate technology into their advising and student services. In iPASS, such technology is intended to increase advising's emphasis on a student's entire college experience, enabling…

College Promise programs aim to make students believe they can afford college, and to give them the opportunity to go to college and earn degrees without taking on significant debt. At the core of all College Promise programs is a scholarship: All eligible College Promise students receive scholarships that may cover up to 100 percent of tuition…

Community colleges continue to increase their efforts to better serve students who enter their institutions with limited basic math, reading, or writing skills. In 2015, MDRC partnered with the Texas Coordinating Higher Education Board on a study to examine how colleges implemented state guidelines for students scoring below ninth-grade…

This paper presents new estimates of the effects of the City University of New York (CUNY) Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) model, evaluated using a randomized controlled trial first in New York and later through a replication in Ohio. It describes longer-term effects of CUNY ASAP in New York, showing that the program's effects on…

Many students who enter community college are deemed underprepared for college-level courses and are referred to developmental (remedial) education courses to build their math, reading, or writing skills. These students often struggle in developmental courses and in college more broadly. To help them, the City University of New York (CUNY)…

Currently, one of the foremost questions many in the career and technical education (CTE) field are asking is: How can the design and delivery of CTE programs promote equity? CTE is currently enjoying a resurgence in popularity with policymakers and practitioners, and its proponents want to avoid repeating the history of vocational education,…

College students have a better chance of succeeding in school when they receive high-quality advising. High-quality advising, when characterized by frequent communications between advisers and students, early outreach to students showing signs of academic or nonacademic struggles, and personalized guidance that addresses individual student needs,…

The Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP), developed by the City University of New York (CUNY), is an uncommonly comprehensive and long-term program designed to address low graduation rates among community college students. MDRC has been studying the effects of ASAP on low-income students with developmental (remedial) education needs at…

This brief catalogues strategies commonly used in interventions at postsecondary educational institutions aimed at improving outcomes for male students of color and charts the way forward for future evaluative work. While young men of color have college and career aspirations similar to those of their white counterparts, a significant gap persists…