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ACC proposes to establish an Office of Student Money Management (ACC-OSMM) ��� the office���s mission would be to give a stronger foundation to students��� academic and career goals and successes by helping them take charge of their financial futures.Two of the inaugural activities of ACC-OSMM will be: to establish a system of sending text message reminders regarding annual Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) renewal to first-year college students who are already receiving financial aid, and to enhance the main tool (Degree Map Online) that ACC counselors use to advise students to include ���real time��� personalized financial aid information. This will improve integration of financial aid and loan awareness into student conversations with academic advisors and counselors. ACC hopes to demonstrate that the activities of ACC-OSMM would be linked to improvements in measures of student success such as: graduation rate, time to completion, retention/persistence, and cohort loan default rate (CDR). ACC will partner with the Ray Marshall Center (RMC) to perform an evaluation, both formative and summative, on the effectiveness of these efforts on the student outcome measures of interest. Both types of evaluations provide actionable information about the success of the intervention while each successive cohort of recipients is in the process of receiving services, allowing for relatively rapid reflection and program modification as needed by ACC staff. Both evaluations are intended to measure the implementation, aggregate outcomes, and the impact of these efforts on Full Time First Time in College (FTFIC) loan or Pell grant receiving students��� graduation rates, 3-year Cohort Default Rates (CDR), retention rates, and fall to fall persistence for those who are Pell eligible. A host of intermediate steps related to these outcomes will also be measured.

As part of the Geology of National Parks course at the University of Texas at Austin, students used data available as citizen scientists to test the hypothesis put forth by the US Geological Survey (USGS) that the K��lauea in Hawaii was the #1 most hazardous volcano in the US. Background: The US Geological Survey indicates that all volcanoes, when erupting, pose a risk to people and infrastructure but stresses that the risks are not the same from one volcano to the next. In an extensive study of several volcanoes, the USGS compiled a list of hazards associated with US volcanoes, including some of those in our national parks. Based on a compilation of facts, the K��lauea volcano in Hawaii emerged as the greatest threat. This course project aimed to challenge (or support) the hypothesis by allowing students to select a volcano they thought could pose more of a threat compared to K��lauea. For this project, the students had the option to critically challenge the ranking of K��lauea as the #1 threat and argue for a different volcano to take its place. They could also elaborate on the ranking of K��lauea as the #1 threat but provide additional information to push the argument further or provide additional data that contributes more information that the USGS might not have considered. The students were able to include their own experience in the issues discussed in the USGS paper and comment on the applicability of the issues raised in the USGS to other settings or other cultures.

Since 2016, the Ray Marshall Center has been providing technical assistance to support Nuru International’s monitoring and evaluation (M&E) team. The Center’s experience and expertise supports Nuru’s work in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Nigeria by demonstrating the effectiveness and robustness of its integrated approach to addressing poverty. In Kenya, the integrated Nuru model seeks to address three key areas of need: 1) food insecurity, 2) inability to cope with economic shocks and 3) unnecessary disease and death. To track program impact, the M&E team collects yearly evaluation data to support all data-driven decision-making. This report reviews Nuru Kenya’s 2020 impact results for rural livelihoods, healthcare, and farmer organization performance.

The Ray Marshall Center is conducting an evaluation of the California Community College Chancellor’s Office’s Financial Literacy Pilot Initiative. Sixteen California community colleges are participating in this pilot. Participating colleges will send students money management tips via texts or emails over the course of ten weeks. Participating colleges will share individual-level data on program participants with RMC. RMC will analyze this data to assess the impact of CCCCO’s financial literacy pilot on student outcomes such as GPA, credit attainment, retention, graduation, and credential attainment. RMC will report on participant outcomes and perform a quasi-experimental evaluation of the program.

RMC researchers have completed an annual impact report for the impact evaluation of Nuru International’s programming in Ethiopia. In 2013, Nuru Ethiopia (NE) set out to provide meaningful choices that empower communities to lift themselves out of poverty in a sustainable way. The NE development model seeks to address four key areas of need: 1) food insecurity, 2) inability to cope with economic shocks, and 3) unnecessary disease and death. In 2016, the Agriculture and Financial Inclusion programs were combined to make the Rural Livelihoods (RL) Program. To track program impact, the NE Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) team collects yearly evaluation data to support all data-driven decision making. In 2016, Nuru International partnered with the Ray Marshall Center to better understand program outcomes and impacts. This report documents the analysis of the agricultural yield and income follow-up data collected in 2020 for the impact evaluation of Nuru International’s programming in Ethiopia.

RMC researchers have completed an annual research memo on the impact of Nuru Kenya’s Healthcare intervention. In 2020, Nuru Kenya’s Healthcare intervention reached 1,659 households including 9,954 individuals with a health behavior change approach. This intervention was delivered as part of an integrated rural service delivery portfolio including livelihoods, financial inclusion, dairy, and farmer cooperative activities. Using the Lives Saved Tool (LiST), researchers found that the intervention achieved a 24% reduction in under-five child mortality. In total, 20 lives were saved. The cost per person per year was $4.84 for these services. The cost per life saved was $2,433. These intervention activities were delivered and the impact was achieved amidst the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since 2016, the Ray Marshall Center has been providing technical assistance to support Nuru International’s monitoring and evaluation (M&E) team. The Center’s experience and expertise supports Nuru’s work in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Nigeria by demonstrating the effectiveness and robustness of its integrated approach to addressing poverty. In Kenya, the integrated Nuru model seeks to address three key areas of need: 1) food insecurity, 2) inability to cope with economic shocks and 3) unnecessary disease and death. To track program impact, the M&E team collects yearly evaluation data to support all data-driven decision making. This report reviews Nuru Kenya’s impact results from baseline collected in 2018 to the first follow-up in 2019 for Nuru Kenya’s Rural Livelihoods and Healthcare programs.

ACC hopes to demonstrate that the activities of ACC-OSMM would be linked to improvements in measures of student success such as: graduation rate, time to completion, retention/persistence, and cohort loan default rate (CDR). ACC will partner with the Ray Marshall Center (RMC) to perform an evaluation, both formative and summative, on the effectiveness of these efforts on the student outcome measures of interest. Both types of evaluations provide actionable information about the success of the intervention while each successive cohort of recipients is in the process of receiving services, allowing for relatively rapid reflection and program modification as needed by ACC staff. Both evaluations are intended to measure the implementation, aggregate outcomes, and the impact of these efforts on Full Time First Time in College (FTFIC) loan or Pell grant receiving students’ graduation rates, 3-year Cohort Default Rates (CDR), retention rates, and fall to fall persistence for those who are Pell eligible. A host of intermediate steps related to these outcomes will also be measured.

The Ray Marshall Center is conducting an evaluation of the California Community College Chancellor’s Office’s Financial Literacy Pilot Initiative. Sixteen California community colleges are participating in this pilot. Participating colleges will send students money management tips via texts or emails over the course of ten weeks. Participating colleges will share individual-level data on program participants with RMC. RMC will analyze this data to assess the impact of CCCCO’s financial literacy pilot on student outcomes such as GPA, credit attainment, retention, graduation, and credential attainment. RMC will report on participant outcomes and perform a quasi-experimental evaluation of the program

Financial wellness and financial literacy are important when it comes to the success of community college students. With this in mind, the California Community College Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO) brought together fifteen California community colleges to pilot a unique financial literacy messaging intervention (FL Pilot) in 2019. The goal of the pilot was to increase student retention and success by delivering useful financial literacy material, focusing on much-needed information about budgeting and credit, and specifically targeting first-year, first-time students, via a texting/email platform. The CCCCO partnered with the Ray Marshall Center (RMC) to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the FL pilot. RMC’s evaluation included an outcome evaluation for each college and a rigorous impact evaluation for the pilot as a whole. RMC adopted a quasi-experimental evaluation approach and used propensity score matching (PSM) to study the impacts of the pilot on key academic and retention student outcomes. Preliminary analysis suggests that the financial literacy messaging campaign had a small but positive impact on first-semester GPA for all students and a fairly large positive impact on fall-to-spring persistence for first-time college students. This interim report presents early findings from the evaluation and discusses next steps as colleges consider implementing the intervention in the 2020-21 academic year.

RMC researchers, Dr. Heath Prince and Ashweeta Patnaik, have completed an interim short term impact report for the four-year impact evaluation of Nuru International’s programming in Nigeria. Nuru Nigeria’s mission is to eradicate extreme poverty in fragile rural areas to build communities resilient to violent extremism. The goal of the multi-year impact evaluation is to study, through a development economics lens, how Nuru’s anti-poverty interventions in Nigeria impact resiliency to shocks. The results presented in this short term impact report reflect the initial limited set of intervention activities implemented from July 2019 to June 2020. The report sets out the follow-up status of various short-term impact indicators and makes comparisons with baseline values for the same indicators and among the same panel of respondents. The report supports continuous improvement by providing Nuru Nigeria with information regarding program progress within the implementation period.

Since 2016, the Ray Marshall Center has been providing technical assistance to support Nuru International’s monitoring and evaluation (M&E) team. The Center’s experience and expertise supports Nuru’s work in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Nigeria by demonstrating the effectiveness and robustness of its integrated approach to addressing poverty. The integrated Nuru model seeks to address four key areas of need: 1) food insecurity, 2) inability to cope with economic shocks, 3) unnecessary disease and death, and 4) lack of quality education for children. In Ethiopia and Kenya, Nuru M&E utilizes a quasi-experimental design with the intent of measuring the effectiveness of the four impact programs as well as the overarching impact of these programs on multidimensional poverty. By following a panel of farmers from a non-intervention group as well as the same cohort of Nuru households over time, Nuru M&E evaluates whether or not any observed changes in well-being can be attributed to Nuru programming. Additionally, M&E analyzes key performance indicators to ensure programs track toward their goals. Since 2017, RMC researchers have been responsible for carrying out data analyses for the Nuru M&E team and studying the outcomes and impacts of Nuru’s programming in Ethiopia. Findings from the analyses are used by the Nuru M&E team to inform program planning and decision making. In this report, RMC researchers present results from an outcomes and impact analysis of Nuru’s Rural Livelihoods, Health, and Education programs in Ethiopia in 2018.

RMC researchers Dr. Heath Prince and Ashweeta Patnaik have completed the baseline analysis for the four-year impact evaluation of Nuru International’s programming in Nigeria. The overarching goal of Nuru Nigeria is to equip rural, vulnerable households to improve livelihoods and build resilience capacities to cope with conflict, environmental, economic, and social shocks and stressors for stability and prosperity. The goal of the multi-year impact evaluation is to study, through a development economics lens, how Nuru’s anti-poverty interventions in Nigeria impact resiliency to shocks. A cluster randomization approach was used to randomly assign two wards to the intervention group and two wards to the comparison group. Statistical methods designed for improving inter-group comparability were applied at baseline to bring the intervention and comparison group participants as closely into balance as possible. A difference-in-differences statistical technique will be used to estimate program impact annually and at endline. The impact evaluation utilizes a mixed-method approach with both quantitative and qualitative components, including a household survey, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews. The evaluation design, baseline data, and the covariate balancing methods applied to the baseline data place the project on a solid footing for rigorous impact analyses at midline and endline.

Project GROW (Growing Regional Opportunities for the Workforce) was an ambitious regional, multi-partner, strategically comprehensive effort that sought to build upon successful and innovative practices to accelerate certification, employment, and career advancement in demand occupations for an array of economically marginal target groups. A consortium of five Workforce Investment Boards known as the Border Workforce Alliance implemented the demonstration whose service area spanned the entire Texas-Mexico border area from the City of Brownsville in the south to El Paso in the north. Despite significant economic expansion in recent years, this region remains one of the most disadvantaged areas in the state and the nation in terms of poverty, unemployment, literacy, limited English language proficiency, education, and income. Project GROW was designed to reduce the predominance of these characteristics for sections of the population that generally have the most difficulty successfully navigating available education, training, and employment opportunities and to prepare the workforce needed to meet the needs of employers in key growth industry sectors. The report provides an analysis of the processes, accomplishments, and constraints of the demonstration, as well as recommendations for sustaining, improving, and replicating the demonstration features, many of which were precursors of WIOA provisions.

Project GROW (Growing Regional Opportunities for the Workforce) was an ambitious regional, multi-partner, strategically comprehensive effort that sought to build upon successful and innovative practices to accelerate credentialing, employment, and career advancement in demand occupations for an array of economically marginal target groups. The service area encompassed five Workforce Investment Boards (WIBs) that span the entire Texas-Mexico border area from the City of Brownsville in the south to El Paso in the north (see Figure 1). These WIBs formed the Border Workforce Alliance (BWA) to adopt and refine regional approaches to workforce development. Despite significant economic expansion in recent years, the border region remains one of the most disadvantaged areas in the state and the nation in terms of poverty, unemployment, literacy, limited English language proficiency, education, and income. Project GROW was designed to reduce the predominance of these characteristics for sections of the population that generally have the most difficulty successfully navigating available education, training, and employment opportunities through accelerated, entry level occupational credentialing in a career pathway that aligns with the needs of employers in key growth industry sectors.

The Ray Marshall Center is conducting a program evaluation to measure the impacts of the Integrated Child Support System (ICSS) that requires those getting divorced or separated to be referred to the Texas Office of the Attorney General (OAG) for IV-D child support services. Operating under a waiver from the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) in 17 counties, the ICSS changes the default action from opt-in to opt-out in order to increase participation in IV-D services, raise child support compliance, and avoid the accumulation of child support debt.The evaluation will report on child support compliance over time, including amount of payment and stability of payment as well as enforcement actions taken, cost effectiveness, and reasons parents choose to opt out.Researchers will conduct the waiver evaluation using a combination of random assignment and comparison site evaluation designs to measure the impacts of the waiver at statewide and county-level operational scales in Texas. The evaluation will use multiple data sets, including OAG administrative records data for determining child support case characteristics, child support obligations, collections, and enforcement actions; Unemployment Insurance (UI) quarterly wage records, U.S. Census data, county level child support data, and other data sources.