Though counseling is one commonly pursued intervention to improve college enrollment and completion for disadvantaged students, there is relatively little causal evidence on its efficacy. We use a regression discontinuity design to study the impact of intensive college counseling provided by a Massachusetts program to college-seeking, low-income…

We study a popular dual enrollment program in Washington State, "Running Start" using a new administrative database that links high school and postsecondary data. Conditional on prior high school performance, we find that students participating in Running Start are more likely to attend any college but less likely to attend four-year…

While college enrollment among low-income students has increased steadily over the last decade, the share of students from the lowest-income families that enroll in college continues to lag considerably behind college entry rates among the highest income students. Furthermore, gaps in college completion by family income have only widened over…

The EXCEL Program began as a National Science Foundation-sponsored STEM Talent Expansion Program in 2006 and, because of its significant impact on retention of STEM majors, has since become an institutionalized program at the University of Central Florida. The University of Central Florida EXCEL Program annually recruits approximately 200…

This report describes the differences in early and long-term college outcomes for Oklahoma ACT-tested students between those who were monitored early with ACT Explore® and ACT Plan® and those who did not take these two assessments prior to taking the ACT® Test. Findings support that early monitoring of college and career readiness with ACT Explore…

The Early College High School (ECHS) initiative developed in response to calls to significantly decrease the number of first-generation college and underserved students of color and from poverty who are high school dropouts or marginally graduates (i.e., ill prepared for college). The ECHS model is different from other educational reforms in that…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to track, compare, and analyze the college readiness of two cohorts of Hispanic English Language Learners (ELLs) by examining scores on state exit-level and national college entrance exams. One cohort was enrolled in the early-exit Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE) program, while the other cohort was…

This paper presents a template for creating a school environment in which college is a reasonable expectation for all students. Drawing from the research literature and lessons learned from more than 4 years of partnership work between a public research university and a cluster of urban K-12 schools, the paper outlines a set of conditions that are…

This report provides an overview of Indiana's Twenty-first Century Scholars Program and analyzes a state database to assess the impact of the program on college enrollment and persistence. The Twenty-first Century Scholars Program asks low-income eighth graders to make a commitment to take the necessary steps to prepare for college. In return, the…

The Biology Intensive Orientation for Students (BIOS) Program was designed to assess the impact of a 5-d intensive prefreshman program on success and retention of biological science majors at Louisiana State University. The 2005 pilot program combined content lectures and examinations for BIOL 1201, Introductory Biology for Science Majors, as well…

This volume, first in a series, contains a literature review of the college access field, as well as case studies and lessons for community leaders interested in designing or reforming college access programs. The college access field contains many well thought out programs that are widely believed to be effective in helping minority and…

This study examined whether or not student, parent, and peer engagement factors that contribute to at-risk students' success in graduating from high school continue to be important in making the transition from high school to postsecondary education. The data set used was the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, which included 1994 data…

This paper reports on three projects in California that have attempted to stem the tide of Latino dropouts and increase the college-going rates of the Latino population. Each of these three programs has tested a set of strategies aimed at increasing the educational attainment of Latino students, who now make up the largest single ethnic group in…