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The Massachusetts Early College Initiative eases the pathway to postsecondary education for thousands of high school students annually. Early college programs provide strategically-sequenced, real college classes with strong career orientations during students' regular high school day. When fully realized, they also provide enhanced academic and guidance support, ensuring high school students successfully complete rigorous college coursework, graduate with significant college credits, and progress toward a degree (Song et al., 2021). Students in early college programs also gain confidence, habits, and skills needed for sustained postsecondary and life success (Edmunds et al., 2017). This brief aims to provide early college practitioners with guidance on how to support students' development of foundational skills in English Language Arts (ELA) and math with the goal of building strong on-ramps to college level coursework. It outlines how practitioners may prioritize their time to accelerate and augment student learning, plan and collaborate across partnerships, and, most importantly, move forward with the implementation of evidence-based practices. Included are both proactive strategies to ensure students are college ready, and interventions designed to address and eliminate learning gaps for students already enrolled in college courses. [This report was co-produced with the Massachusetts Alliance for Early College (MA4EC).]

In the 2023 Legislative Session, the Legislature charged the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) with surveying Maryland's colleges and universities on practices related to academic advising and student services. A survey was created and prepared by MHEC staff. The survey was sent to 52 institutions of higher education across the state. Of the institutions contacted, 38 responded to the survey. Survey responses reveal that most institutions currently use an intrusive/proactive advising model. Most institutions employ student-centered practices like holistic advising, proactively communicating with students, and other practices focused on relationship-building and addressing students' diverse needs. The majority of institutions surveyed reported that they implement the same elements of intrusive advising to all undergraduate students, but many also target special populations of students, most notably those who are academically at-risk and freshman/first-year students. In addition, the survey asked a series of questions about wrap-around services, which refers to holistic support that addresses a student's full range of needs to ensure academic success. Lastly, when asked to provide counts of student parents on their campuses, the vast majority of institutions reported they have no information on the parental status of their students. The report concludes with information and recommendations on steps institutions and the state could take on the areas of academic advising, wrap around services and student parents.

The growing cost of college is one of the most significant barriers to completion. However, research shows that frequent, intensive advising, combined with financial and other support, can make a tremendous difference in helping students complete. For two years, TICAS has worked with a group of rigorously evaluated organizations across the country that provide these comprehensive approaches to student success, or CASS, by connecting students with counselors and advisors to foster personal relationships and building a customized suite of support. Along with research partners MDRC and the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO), TICAS convened these groups to better understand what it would take to reach all students who could benefit from these programs throughout the country. With this community of practice, TICAS created a research agenda identifying the research questions most pressing to answer at this moment in time and a framework for equity in the use of data.

We combine a large multi-site randomized control trial with administrative and survey data to demonstrate that intensive advising during high school and college leads to large increases in bachelor's degree attainment. Novel causal forest methods suggest that these increases are driven primarily by improvements in the quality of initial enrollment. Program effects are consistent across sites, cohorts, advisors, and student characteristics, suggesting the model is scalable. While current and proposed investments in postsecondary education focus on cutting costs, our results suggest that investment in advising is likely to be a more efficient route to promote bachelor's degree attainment.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought on an employment crisis alongside falling college enrollment rates, which reached historic lows at two-year institutions. Would these twin crises provide the motivation and opportunity that states, education institutions, and employers needed to make meaningful progress toward a more flexible and integrated learning system? To find out, we interviewed 31 K-12, state, and nonprofit leaders who have been focused on redesigning education and career pathways. We asked them how their work has changed in the last year and what their priorities are as the nation emerges from the pandemic. In these conversations, we learned about efforts to coordinate education and workforce systems that have too long been disconnected: (1) As schools and workplaces went online, states built virtual college and career counseling tools that were accessible to anyone with an internet connection--not just students currently enrolled in K-12 or higher education institutions; (2) The pandemic brought on widespread experimentation with the five-day school schedule, new familiarity with virtual learning models, and a desire to wait on attending college. This created opportunities to innovate on how learners connect with industry during and beyond high school; (3) Postsecondary institutions and states have demonstrated renewed interest in microcredentials to help people rapidly enter or re-enter the workforce. While we saw higher education and industry make significant strides to align and collaborate, we saw few innovations initiated by K-12 systems. We offer four ways states can engage K-12: (1) Invest in virtual platforms that support college and career navigation; (2) Incentivize bold experimentation with hybrid learning to design new models that blend school and workplace learning or connect with postsecondary microcredentials; (3) Step in to encourage and regulate high-quality, postsecondary microcredentials that stack toward associate and bachelor degrees; and (4) Combine policy with technical assistance to help districts credit out-of-school learning.

"Bottom Line" provides intensive advising for low-income high school students, most of whom are the first in their family to go to college. The advising is designed to help students apply for college and financial aid and select a high-quality, affordable institution. For students who attend one of "Bottom Line's" target colleges which they identified as providing a high-quality education at an affordable price, "Bottom Line" continues to provide regular support to students on campus for up to six years. This What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) report, part of the WWC's Transition to College topic area, explores the effects of "Bottom Line" on enrolling and progressing in college. The WWC identified two studies of "Bottom Line," one of which meets WWC standards. The evidence presented in this report is from one study of the impact of "Bottom Line" on high school and college students--including African-American, Hispanic, and Asian students--based in Boston, New York City, and Worcester, Massachusetts. [For "Bottom Line. Intervention Brief. Transition to College Topic Area. NCEE 2021-013," see ED612307. For "Bottom Line. Intervention Snapshot. Transition to College Topic Area. NCEE 2021-013," see ED612308.]

"Bottom Line" provides intensive advising for low-income high school students, most of whom are the first in their family to go to college. The advising is designed to help students apply for college and financial aid and select a high-quality, affordable institution. For students who attend one of "Bottom Line's" target colleges, which they identified as providing a high-quality education at an affordable price, "Bottom Line" continues to provide regular support to students on campus for up to six years. This What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) report, part of the WWC's Transition to College topic area, explores the effects of "Bottom Line" on enrolling and progressing in college. The WWC identified two studies of "Bottom Line," one of which meets WWC standards. The evidence presented in this report is from one study of the impact of "Bottom Line" on high school and college students--including African-American, Hispanic, and Asian students--based in Boston, New York City, and Worcester, Massachusetts. This intervention brief provides an overview of the full report. [For "Bottom Line. Intervention Report. Transition to College Topic Area. NCEE 2021-013," see ED612306. For "Bottom Line. Intervention Snapshot. Transition to College Topic Area. NCEE 2021-013," see ED612308.]

Student success in postsecondary education depends on academic preparation and on having the nonacademic knowledge, skills, and behaviors to successfully navigate the demands of postsecondary study. While nonacademic competencies are important for all students, rural and high-poverty populations face unique nonacademic challenges, such as access to adequate college counseling and mentoring. They also have lower postsecondary enrollment and completion rates than their nonrural or low-poverty peers (Adelman, 2006; Byun et al., 2012; Hu, 2003). This review sought to identify nonacademic interventions with evidence of positive effects on postsecondary enrollment, academic performance, persistence, and completion, particularly with rural and high-poverty populations. Results identified five interventions with potentially positive effects for all students: Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) interventions, the Facilitating Long-term Improvements in Graduation and Higher Education for Tomorrow (FLIGHT) program, college counseling, summer counseling, and summer bridge programs. Of these five interventions, two (FLIGHT and summer counseling) showed positive effects with high-poverty populations. In addition to these five interventions, Upward Bound showed positive effects for rural and high-poverty students, but not for the overall study population. Additionally, the Upward Bound study took place between 1992 and 1994. The program has changed substantially since that time, and thus the findings of the study may not be generalizable to current conditions. These results indicate a need for additional high-quality research with rural and high-poverty populations so that education leaders can select and implement interventions that work in their contexts. Key findings: (1) There is a medium to large extent of evidence for the effect of FAFSA interventions on postsecondary enrollment. Additionally, there is a small extent of evidence for the effects of FAFSA, FLIGHT, college counseling, summer counseling, and summer bridge programs on at least one metric of postsecondary enrollment or success; (2) Only one study found positive effects for rural populations, and three found positive effects for high-poverty populations. Upward Bound reported positive effects for students in rural and high-poverty schools, and Upward Bound, summer counseling, and FLIGHT reported positive effects on high-poverty populations. Based on our review of research from key databases, there appears to be a gap in rigorous evidence about nonacademic interventions with rural and high-poverty populations; and (3) The information available on the effects of nonacademic interventions on postsecondary enrollment and success appears to have significant gaps. Our search of the published literature returned only 17 studies (across nine interventions) that used well-designed and well-implemented experimental or quasi-experimental designs, and only eight of these studies (across six interventions) found statistically significant positive effects of nonacademic interventions on postsecondary outcomes.

To highlight differences in student-to-counselor ratios, NACAC has prepared a series of state maps using school district-level data available from the US Department of Education. Research has shown that secondary school counselors play a critical role in facilitating the transition to postsecondary education. Unfortunately, the ability of public school counselors to assist students with college planning is often hindered by unmanageable caseloads. In 2015-16, only two states--Vermont and New Hampshire--had average counselor caseloads that met the 250 maximum recommended by the American School Counselors Association (ASCA). Although state averages provide a general sense of how states are meeting students' school counseling needs, they can mask substantial differences in student-to-counselor ratios within states. A school district-level analysis draws attention to areas most in need of outreach and support. This project is an update and extension of the 2018 State-by-State Student-to-Counselor Ratio Report, done in partnership with ASCA, which tracks counselor caseloads over a 10-year period from 2004-05 to 2014-15.

Growing experimental evidence demonstrates that low-touch informational, nudge, and virtual advising interventions are ineffective at improving postsecondary educational outcomes for economically-disadvantaged students at scale. Intensive in-person college advising programs are a considerably higher-touch and more resource intensive strategy; some programs provide students with dozen of hours of individualized assistance starting in high school and continuing through college, and can cost thousands of dollars per student served. Despite the magnitude of this investment, causal evidence on these programs' impact is quite limited, particularly for programs that serve Hispanic students, the fastest growing segment of U.S. college enrollees. We contribute new evidence on the impact of intensive college advising programs through a multi-cohort RCT of College Forward, which provides individualized advising from junior year of high school through college for a majority Hispanic student population in Texas. College Forward leads to a 7.5 percentage point increase in enrollment in college, driven entirely by increased enrollment at four-year universities. Students who receive College Forward advising are nearly 12 percentage points more likely to persist to their third year of college. While more costly and harder to scale than low-touch interventions, back of the envelope calculations suggest that the benefit from increased college graduation likely induced by the program outweighs operating costs in less than two years following college completion.

This brief is one in a series aimed at providing K-12 education decision makers and advocates with an evidence base to ground discussions about how to best serve students during and following the novel coronavirus pandemic. It addresses one central question: How can research inform student transitions from high school to college and career, given the financial and health uncertainties that students -- particularly those who are marginalized and traditionally underserved -- are facing due to the COVID-19 pandemic? In order to answer this question, the brief breaks down the issue into three points: (1) Recent recessions have increased existing employment gaps between workers with and without a college degree; (2) Research generally shows that students are better off attending college versus not and better off attending a more selective bachelor's degree-granting institution; and (3) Both college-bound and career-bound students are at risk of losing momentum in 2020-2021 and transitioning to a less secure postsecondary pathway. Based on these points, the brief provides four strategies to consider and two strategies to avoid. [This brief was co-prepared by Southern Methodist University, Simmons School of Education & Human Development.]

In 2014, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) awarded $107 million in four-year grants to 24 applicants for the Youth CareerConnect (YCC) program, a high school-based program that blended academic and career-focused learning to better prepare students for both college and careers in high-growth industries that often rely on foreign workers. The program included employer partnerships and engagement, integrated academic and career curricula, work-based learning and exposure to the world of work, individualized career and academic counseling, small learning communities, and professional development. After four school years of enrolling students, 31,019 students in 130 high schools in 18 states and Puerto Rico had participated in the YCC program. DOL contracted with Mathematica and its subcontractor Social Policy Research Associates to conduct an evaluation of the YCC program that included both an implementation and impact study. This report focuses on the impact study and answers the research question, "What is the impact of the YCC program on critical milestones and momentum points that can be achieved in high school and are associated with education and employment success?" It does so using two rigorous components: a quasi-experimental design (QED) in 16 school districts (6,207 YCC students and 109,541 comparable non-YCC students), and a randomized controlled trial (RCT) in four school districts that were also part of the QED. It drew information from three data sources: (1) the Participant Tracking System, which tracked services and activities for all YCC students; (2) school records in the 16 QED school districts; and (3) a survey completed by 279 treatment and 157 control group students in three of the four RCT school districts. Students in the RCT were randomly assigned into a treatment group who was offered the opportunity to enroll in the YCC program or into a control group excluded from the YCC program. Our estimations show that the YCC program had small beneficial impacts. Our primary analysis found that it increased school attendance by 0.7 percentage points (from about 90.7 to 91.5 percent) and moved a student who is at the 50th percentile in accumulating credits for high school graduation to approximately the 54th percentile. The primary analysis also showed that the YCC program might increase proficiency in English language arts. No evidence existed that the YCC program had an effect on students completing algebra coursework. Our secondary analysis showed few differences in impacts across student subgroups based on prior academic achievement and low-income status. Impacts did tend to be larger for students who received an internship, had a mentor, or completed an individual development plan, although these effects might be partly driven by factors that influence both service participation and program outcomes. It also appeared that impacts grew stronger as the program matured. Our results have several implications for future research. First, research might explore whether the small but significant impacts on milestones and momentum points that students could achieve while in high school translate into education and employment success after high school. Second, research might explore the mechanisms that produced the stronger impacts found when students received an internship, had a mentor, or completed an individual development plan. [This report was co-produced by Social Policy Research Associates.]

Massachusetts was one of the 10 states selected to participate in New Skills for Youth (NSFY). NSFY, launched by JPMorgan Chase & Co. in 2016, is a $75 million, five-year initiative, aimed at strengthening and expanding high-quality career pathways for youth. As part of this initiative, the Council of Chief State School Officers, Advance CTE, and Education Strategy Group worked with states to improve their career readiness systems. This snapshot profiles the work Massachusetts did to enhance its career readiness system across the entire NSFY initiative. Between 2016 and 2019, Massachusetts: (1) Designed and launched a college and career pathways designation program: Following recommendations from the Early College Joint Committee in 2017, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and Department of Higher Education designed and launched a new initiative to expand access to high-quality college and career pathways (HQCCPs); (2) Consolidated and coordinated workforce planning: In Massachusetts, cross-agency workforce development efforts are coordinated by the governor's Workforce Skills Cabinet, which includes leadership from the Executive Offices of Education, Labor and Workforce Development, and Housing and Economic Development; and (3) Refreshed college and career advising across the commonwealth: DESE developed a new college and career advising framework that focuses on career development and college and career planning in grades 9-12. [For the summary report, see ED602101.]

This research report is a preliminary assessment of college advising needs in nine target school districts surrounding the Houston Independent School District: "Pasadena," "Galena Park," "Sheldon," "Humble," "Aldine," "Cypress-Fairbanks," "Spring Branch," "Alief," and "Katy ISD." We present our findings based on publicly available information from district and state sources, data from state agencies, and additional information gathered from phone interviews with district personnel. We report three primary conclusions: (1) districts struggle with limited documentation and/or accessibility of college application and enrollment rates, (2) there is a strong need for increased post-secondary advising services and (3) there is a strong need for more equitable distribution of services across high school campuses.

The "2019 State of College Admission" report provides up-to-date information on a number of issues that impact students' transition from high school to postsecondary education. The report covers the recruitment strategies that colleges use to attract prospective students and the process by which candidates are evaluated for admission. Information about application volume and admission rates are provided for first-time domestic freshmen, as well as transfer and international students. The report also includes a chapter dedicated to school counseling in US secondary schools, given the integral role school counselors play in putting students on the path to postsecondary success. The report is divided into four chapters: (1) College Applications; (2) Recruitment and Yield Strategies; (3) Factors in Admission Decisions; and (4) Secondary School Counseling.

Seamless and future-oriented: in essence, this is Finland's vision for lifelong learning in a world where adapting to new jobs and tasks and trends in society is becoming the norm. To make it a reality requires the support of the entire education and training system. This renewed emphasis on learning as a continuous process throughout life and the need for future-proof education and training policies are priorities of Finland's 2019 Presidency of the Council of the European Union. For Europe to remain competitive and inclusive also requires sufficient investment in human capital. This is highlighted by the intention of the Finnish presidency to bring together education and finance ministers, sending a strong signal to policy-makers. This short description, drawn up in close collaboration with Cedefop's national ReferNet partner, aims to offer a glimpse of Finland's VET, its successes and challenges, to a wider European audience. Our overall aim is to help readers understand VET in its specific country context; this is a prerequisite to supporting policy learning, building bridges between VET systems, and encouraging learner and teacher mobility across Europe.

Pre-college advising programs exist in most disadvantaged high schools throughout the United States. These programs supplement traditional advising by high school guidance counselors and attempt to help underrepresented and disadvantaged students overcome the complexities of the postsecondary admission and financial aid processes. Existing evidence on these programs often uses within-school randomization where spillovers and alternative supports may confound estimates. We provide the first evidence on a whole school intervention resulting from a school-level randomized controlled trial in the United States. The college access program we study uses a near-peer model where a recent college graduate works at the school assisting students in the application and enrollment process. Pooled results across the first three years of program implementation find no significant impacts on overall college enrollment. However, subgroup analyses reveal positive, significant effects among the groups most targeted by the intervention: Hispanic and low-income students. Most of the impact comes through increasing two-year college enrollment, but this appears to be new entrants rather than inducing students to move from four-year to two-year colleges. The observed positive effects for these subgroups attenuate over time. We attribute this drop in the estimated impact to departures in fidelity of the experiment. Even among the cohorts for which we find positive enrollment impacts, we find no significant impacts on college persistence. [This article was published in the "Journal of Policy Analysis and Management."]

"Find the Fit" advising increased the number and selectivity of colleges applied to by disadvantaged students in a federal college access program. "Find the Fit" includes customized information about college going and costs, text messaging of key application and financial aid deadlines, and related advisor training. These research-based strategies are designed to help students enroll in the best college they can and stay in until they complete a degree. This snapshot of the first report of the study looks at "Find the Fit's" effects on students' steps toward enrolling in a more selective college. [For the full report, "Study of Enhanced College Advising in Upward Bound: Impacts on Steps toward College. NCEE 2019-4002," see ED588782. For the study highlights, "Study of Enhanced College Advising in Upward Bound: Impacts on Steps toward College. Study Highlights. NCEE 2019-4002," see ED588786.]

Since the publication of "Redesigning America's Community Colleges" (Thomas Bailey, Shanna Smith Jaggars, and Davis Jenkins) in 2015, guided pathways reform has become a national movement in community colleges. As of spring 2018, more than 250 community colleges have committed to undertaking large-scale guided pathways reforms as part of national, state, or regional efforts, and many other colleges are doing so on their own. Guided pathways colleges are redesigning their policies, programs, and services to support student success in four major practice areas: (1) mapping pathways to student end goals; (2) helping students choose and enter a program pathway; (3) keeping students on path; and (4) ensuring that students are learning. Part 1 of this practitioner packet provides an overview of the changes in practice involved in the four areas of the guided pathways model. It also presents examples from colleges and data on improvements they have achieved in leading indicators of longer term success. [For "Part 2: Case Studies," see ED582821. For "Part 3: Timeline and Tips for Implementing Pathways Reforms," see ED582823.]