The FNS Research Corner provides a continuing series to summarize recently completed and current research conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) in the area of child nutrition. Summaries of recently completed research projects and in-progress research are provided in this article.

While postsecondary completion rates are a concern among many student populations across the country, college graduation rates for Latino students, especially Latino male students, are even lower than the national average. Low-income Latino men face many barriers to postsecondary success, including both financial and personal obstacles. This…

One of the original purposes of student financial aid was to ensure fairer access to post-secondary education to those least able to afford it and to those traditionally underrepresented. Various federal and state programs were put in place to achieve this goal, including the federal Pell Grant and state aid programs. Yet policymakers and…

Difficulties in paying for college and in maintaining good academic performance are two major hurdles to college graduation for low-income students. In recent years, state and federal budgets for postsecondary education have been cut significantly, limiting the options policymakers, education leaders, and communities have to improve rates of…

The expense of attending college is one factor that may explain why low-income students often drop out of school. In California, despite generous state aid and relatively low fees at community colleges, many low-income students still have substantial college-related costs that they cannot cover. To compound matters, federal support for students…

Although a growing number of individuals are enrolling in college in response to the increasing payoff to higher education, more than a third of them never finish. College completion rates are especially disappointing for low-income students, in many cases because they tend to enter college underprepared academically but also because they have…

Opportunity NYC-Family Rewards, an experimental, privately funded, conditional cash transfer (CCT) program to help families break the cycle of poverty, was the first comprehensive CCT program in a developed country. Launched in 2007 by New York City's Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO), Family Rewards offered cash assistance to low-income…

Between the 1975-76 and 1976-77 school years, Title I school eligibility, student selection, and concentration of funds and services are scheduled to change. This report outlines the plans of the agency which will compare the distribution of instructional and other educational services before and after the policy changes and provide analysis for…

This article reviews the development of gifted education in Taiwan and identifies some current problems such as negative effects of entrance examinations and unchallenging curricula. It describes the development of a pilot program using Renzulli's Enrichment Triad Model. Findings related to curriculum compacting, group training activities, and…

In February 2007, First 5 LA contracted with Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. (MPR) and its subcontractors, Juarez and Associates, American Institutes for Research (AIR), and Berkeley Evaluation and Assessment Research (BEAR) Center, to conduct the First 5 LA/LAUP Universal Preschool Child Outcomes Study (UPCOS). The authors conducted the study…

The document presents the final report on Connecticut's pilot programs for students with learning disabilities. During 1984-86, the two programs were implemented at Housatonic Community College and the University of Connecticut. Evaluation activities are reported for each program site. Among evaluation results for Housatonic College were the…

The Washington Reemployment Bonus Experiment (WREB) was composed of 6 different "treatments" involving offers of bonuses to over 12,000 unemployed workers filing initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits. The 6 treatments were represented by all combinations of 3 different "bonus amounts" calculated as either 2, 4, or 6 times the…

This report promotes one-stop shopping for health and social services as an effective strategy for accommodating the needs of pregnant women and their children. Roadblocks to receipt of care by pregnant women include ignorance of prenatal or preventive pediatric services, poverty, weak referral networks, and the fragmentation of programs and…

Data from the first two years (1975-76 and 1976-77) of a three year study of Demonstration Compensatory Education Projects are presented in this report. The demonstration study was designed to produce evidence about proposed changes in the allocation of Title I funds. Of the thirteen districts chosen for the study, eleven elected to change their…

As part of a Title I demonstration project, sixteen school districts were chosen to change their compensatory education Federal fund allocation procedures by substituting an educational definition of need for the formerly used income definition. The purpose of this report is threefold: (1) to describe the demographic characteristics of the…