2023 Education Philanthropy Report

Supporting Reforms That Effectively Reach All Learners

OPPORTUNITY: Learners from low-income backgrounds face circumstances that may cause them to drop out before earning a degree. Their success depends on redesigning postsecondary education institutions and systems to meet their needs.

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: Addressing the barriers to success for learners from low-income backgrounds is essential to ensuring their opportunity for upward mobility.

  • Today’s students are often older, more diverse, working one or more jobs, raising families, and struggling to make ends meet.
  • Our grantmaking focuses on identifying the most persistent barriers faced by learners from low-income backgrounds and then exploring and testing the most promising solutions for removing them.
  • We engage networks of institutions transforming themselves to be more student centered. This includes reshaping how they deliver courses, advise students, set schedules, and revise policies that may disproportionately impact learners from low-income backgrounds.

In the initial months of college, students often experience a mix of excitement and anxiety. These months can be a pivotal period for today's students, with the potential to shape their entire college experience. We recognize the significance of supporting initiatives that enable students to establish early momentum and swiftly overcome challenges, considering these efforts integral to our grantmaking.

To ensure the sustained academic well-being of learners from low-income backgrounds, postsecondary education institutions must adopt strategies focused on retaining students from pre-enrollment through early course successes. The good news is there's a growing range of innovative and promising strategies and evidence of what works.

Tackling Early Student Attrition

In collaboration with the Institute for Evidence-Based Change and RAND Corporation, Ascendium is actively supporting community colleges in Texas in implementing student-centered practices that enhance learners' sense of belonging. Decades of research show that learners who feel connected to their postsecondary institution are more likely to persist and complete their education. Through these initiatives, we hope to explore strategies for capturing and addressing early student loss that can be shared with and adopted by other campuses.

Improving Student Placement Strategies

Traditional practices of placing incoming students into introductory, or “gatekeeper,” English and math courses based solely on standardized test performance can inadvertently hinder the success of many learners, particularly those from low-income backgrounds. In contrast, adopting multiple measures assessments, using a variety of assessment tools, has been correlated with higher completion rates and more equitable student outcomes. This is why we support MDRC, in collaboration with the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Teachers College, Columbia University, in scaling the adoption of multiple measures assessment systems for student placement in math and English.

Examining Barriers for English-Language Learners

English-language learners constitute a diverse and rapidly expanding subgroup of students, often hailing from low-income backgrounds. The journey to equip these learners with essential language skills and credentials faces significant obstacles, including curricular misalignment, operational inefficiencies, and ineffective classroom practices. Research initiatives by WestEd and CCRC are laying the foundation for broader efforts to fundamentally change how English-language learners are provided the opportunity and support to succeed in postsecondary education.

RELATED STORIES

Initiatives that enable students to establish early momentum and swiftly overcome challenges are integral to our grantmaking.