Even after accounting for all financial aid, many low-income college students have thousands of dollars of unmet need, even when they attend low-cost institutions such as community colleges. This is one factor that contributes to low rates of college completion, especially by low-income and other non-traditional students. One way to close this gap…

Effective advocacy can help raise awareness about the issues of literacy and adult basic education, and can also have very tangible benefits. Over the past eight years, Dorcas Place Adult and Family Literacy Center (Providence, RI) has increased the number of students served from 100 to 1,100, increased the budget from $1.1 million to almost $3…

On February 5, 2008, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published the final rules implementing changes in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program made by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA). While these rules do not affect the overall statutory limitations on counting education and training toward the…

The National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL) and the National Adult Education Professional Development Consortium (NAEPDC), with funding from the National Institute for Literacy, created a one-day workshop to assist practitioners and administrators in adult basic education, TANF (Transitional Assistance for Needy…

Critical issues facing adult literacy practitioners include (1) competing perspectives about education vs. jobs; (2) ideological dilemmas about the individual vs. social change philosophy and adult learners' values; (3) educational dilemmas about program goals and purposes under welfare reform; and (4) ethical dilemmas. (SK)

Living in an age of communication, literacy is an extremely integral part of our society. We are impacted by literature during our infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. "Literacy for the New Millennium" includes information from specialists in the field who discuss the influence of popular culture, media, and technology on…

This document consists of two issue briefs that provide information on the new federal welfare program, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. Part I looks at these requirements of the new law: development of a state plan that describes how the state will ensure that welfare recipients are working within 2 years; determination of what activities…

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 gave tribal governments new authority to structure and administer their own cash assistance, employment and training, child care, and child support enforcement programs. This "Issue Notes" describes some current characteristics of tribal Temporary…

This publication is designed to help TANF [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] agencies create specific program interventions to serve TANF recipients in place-based (in particular, housing-based) programs that help welfare recipients find and keep jobs. TANF programs increasingly serve welfare recipients with multiple barriers to steady…

Community colleges are undoubtedly aligned in the most strategic positions to affect social and economic change. Numerous factors are playing a part in the shifts felt throughout higher education today. From the recent economic recession that continues to provide America with more displaced workers, unemployed and underemployed adults to the…

This paper describes the Essential Skills Program at the Community College of Denver (CCD), which functions as an education broker and a labor market intermediary that coordinates the services offered by CCD with the needs of a number of Department of Social Service clients. The Essential Skills Program (ESP) supplements the services offered by…

A study evaluated the basic skills and employment prospects of current adult Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) recipients. It performed an analysis for the United States as a whole and separate analyses for nearly all the 75 most populous U.S. counties, plus the District of Columbia. These counties contained 43 percent of the nation's…

This publication, one of a series designed to help policymakers and TANF [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] agency personnel, offers a baseline for understanding the challenge of serving persons who are being forced off welfare roles but who are hard to place in employment. The following topics are covered: (1) policy issues (who should be…

This 60-minute videotape presents a panel discussion involving four individuals: executive director of a state literacy resource development center; district manager of a major corporation; policy analyst for the National Adult Education Professional Development Consortium; and executive director an office of De Pauw University's Division of…

This publication, one of a series designed to help policymakers and TANF [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] agency personnel, offers an overview of programs providing publicly funded paid jobs in the public or nonprofit sector to TANF recipients, as well as of work experience programs in which recipients receive welfare payment in return…