In the United States, people often feel like they need to choose between pursuing a conventional four-year college degree or working, leaving millions of people with no opportunity to achieve the professional and economic advancement that comes with a bachelor's degree. What if this is a false choice? Apprenticeship Degrees offer a hybrid option…

The purpose of this interpretive phenomenological qualitative research study was to solicit the perceptions of currently attending as well as recent graduate minority male students of one Texas private, postsecondary institution regarding the identification of academic, social, financial, and moral support programs considered to be most…

The federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) created the Behavioral Interventions for Child Support Services (BICS) demonstration in 2014. The goals of the demonstration were to use insights from behavioral science to develop interventions that could improve child support services and increase parent engagement, and to encourage the…

As the first major effort to use a behavioral economics lens to examine human services programs that serve poor and vulnerable families in the United States, the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project demonstrated the value of applying behavioral insights to improve the efficacy of human services programs. The BIAS…

For many non-traditional candidates, the path into teaching is riddled with bumps and detours. They must pay for increasingly expensive coursework and certification costs, attend classes that conflict with work schedules, and forgo wages to complete unfunded student teaching requirements. These roadblocks can deter valuable local…

This is the third paper on the topic of outcomes-based funding written by Dennis Jones for Complete College America. The first paper, "Performance Funding: From Idea to Action" (ED535356), proposed a set of design and implementation principles to help states develop and implement their own outcomes-based funding models. The second paper,…

The joint-use library is a place where people of all ages, interests, and income levels can find items of interest at no personal cost. The mission of A. H. Meadows Public and High School Library in Midlothian, Texas, is to offer what other public libraries provide: educational and entertainment resources to a community. Yet, the staff also wants…

The Expanding the Network of STEM Scholars through the ADVANCE Women of Color Writing Retreat has become a model for knowledge sharing and intervention adaptation in the areas of scholarly productivity and faculty development. This multi-institutional network reveals the complexity of supporting scholarly productivity for women at minority serving…

The Career and Technical Education (CTE) playbook series has explored strategies and processes states can use to strengthen CTE program quality and provide students with pathways to postsecondary credentialing and middle- and higher wage career opportunities. In the first three CTE Playbooks, ExcelinEd provided a high-level view of how states can…

Career and Technical Education (CTE) balances the pull between the practical and theoretical by applying academic knowledge to real-world problems, preparing students for a wide array of careers. Unfortunately, confusion and stereotypes still reign when it comes to what career and technical education is and is not, even as public sentiment shifts…

"The Mentoring Toolkit 2.0: Resources for Developing Programs for Incarcerated Youth" provides information, program descriptions, and links to important resources that can assist juvenile correctional facilities and other organizations to design effective mentoring programs for neglected and delinquent youth, particularly those who are…

Universities develop strategic planning documents, and as part of that planning process, logic models are developed for specific programs within the university. This article examines the long-standing pecan program at New Mexico State University and the deficiencies and successes in the evolution of its logic model. The university's agricultural…

Research evidence suggests that summer breaks contribute to income-based achievement and opportunity gaps for children and youth. However, summertime can also be used to provide programs that support an array of goals for children and youth, including improved academic achievement, physical health, mental health, social and emotional well-being,…

Down payment or closing cost assistance is an effective program in addressing the wealth constraints of low-and moderate-income homebuyers. However, the spillover effect of such programs on the neighborhood is unknown. This paper estimates the impact of the City of Dallas Mortgage Assistance Program (MAP) on nearby home values using a hedonic…

The Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project is the first major opportunity to use a behavioral economics lens to look at programs that serve poor and vulnerable people in the United States. Sponsored by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) within the U.S.…