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At its most effective, advising is a collaborative process between a student and an advisor designed to help the student realize their educational potential. Most postsecondary institutions have historically used advisors to help students select and register for courses, but postsecondary institutions are increasingly asking advisors to play an instrumental role in helping students progress through college. This summary introduces the recommendations and supporting evidence described in the full practice guide: (1) Intentionally design and deliver comprehensive, integrated advising that incorporates academic and non-academic supports to empower students to reach their educational goals; (2) Transform advising to focus on the development of sustained, personalized relationships with individual students throughout their college career; (3) Use mentoring and coaching to enhance comprehensive, integrated advising in ways that support students' achievement and progression; and (4) Embed positive incentives in intentionally designed advising structures to encourage student participation and continued engagement. [For the full practice guide, see ED615134.]

The COVID-19 pandemic brought the care crisis in the United States to the fore. Unprecedented closures of child care programs throughout 2020 placed a disproportionate burden on families, and mothers in particular. For parents enrolled in college or considering postsecondary enrollment at the time of the pandemic, the loss of child care services had an amplified effect-- threatening to derail their education goals. This brief draws on a series of interviews with campus child care directors and a review of data and relevant literature. It presents information for academic and institutional researchers, campus child care practitioners, college and university staff and administrators, and other stakeholders interested in understanding the availability and importance of campus child care services for student parent success. The brief makes the case for the importance of building rigorous evidence of the effect of campus child care access on student outcomes and discusses the factors related to campus child care center operations and institutional data collection that can, at times, undermine the ability to rigorously study the effectiveness of child care supports for student parents. The authors' findings are discussed in the context of evidence-based decision making to articulate the challenges and opportunities for conducting rigorous study. Given the timing of the feasibility study, the brief also provides a snapshot of campus child care providers' experiences during COVID-19. It concludes with recommendations to improve conditions for rigorous research on the role of campus child care in the outcomes of students with children.

In the quest to address income inequality and intergenerational poverty, it is critical to seek answers to the questions "What works?" and "For whom?" Education is a prime area in which to seek solutions, as one's level of education completed is positively correlated with income later in life. This connection contributes to a specific focus on schools to reduce inequality and a reliance on test scores as both a measure of intervention effectiveness and a proximal measure of young people's future outcomes. As Richard Murnane points out in a new essay, however, some efforts to improve and expand instruction have yielded improvements in test scores, but a narrow focus on this measure alone obscures a larger picture (2021). The findings suggest what many educators and parents know: Larger contexts affect school performance. To address income inequality and intergenerational poverty, education is just one instrument--and what is needed is a tool chest. Both research and data reflect the perspectives of the researcher and the data collector, as well as the societal context. Given the widespread fallacy that research and data are objective, this recognition will require intentional effort on the part of researchers. Ignoring these facts will only perpetuate recommendations for incomplete policy actions.

MDRC is pleased to have this opportunity to provide additional information for the consideration of Chairman Alexander, Ranking Member Murray, and members of the Committee on ways research can be used to improve the academic success of low-income college students. The goal of this additional testimony is to reiterate the second recommendation in the testimony of Dr. Lashawn Richburg-Hayes to "encourage innovation paired with research, especially rigorous evaluation." The testimony of Senators and witnesses at the August 5, 2015 hearing provided a number of promising ideas that are operationally feasible and whose outcomes seem encouraging, but that have not yet been subjected to rigorous evaluation based on WWC standards. In addition, other evaluated programs that were mentioned produced small effects at best on outcomes identified by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) as key markers of collegiate progress. In a time of limited resources, building reliable evidence before making major investments is essential to the long-term goal of increasing college completion. This additional testimony is intended to emphasize the importance of building into the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act incentives for innovation, coupled with requirements for rigorous evaluation through randomized experiments whenever feasible. This testimony identifies opportunities in two areas--financial aid and student support services--and offers caution in the area of performance funding for higher education. A summary of recommendations is included.

One of the original purposes of student financial aid was to ensure fairer access to post-secondary education to those least able to afford it and to those traditionally underrepresented. Various federal and state programs were put in place to achieve this goal, including the federal Pell Grant and state aid programs. Yet policymakers and education leaders continue to grapple with how to boost college attendance and completion in an era when the number of college graduates is lagging behind demand and government resources are increasingly limited. Increasing the number of college graduates is particularly difficult given the continued rising cost of attending college and the failure of financial aid to keep pace. This report presents early findings from an evaluation of performance-based scholarships targeting college-bound high school seniors in California, referred to as the Cash for College Performance-Based Scholarship (CFC-PBS) Program. This program is one of six being studied as part of the Performance-Based Scholarship (PBS) Demonstration. Performance-based scholarships are need-based grants contingent on meeting certain academic benchmarks to receive payment--in this case, a half-time course load with a "C" or better grade point average (GPA). Unlike merit-based scholarships, there are no academic criteria to be eligible for the program at the outset. The CFC-PBS scholarship can be taken to any accredited, degree-granting college or university in the country. The goal of the CFC-PBS Program is to increase the amount of aid available for students while simultaneously providing an incentive for academic achievement. Using a random assignment design--the gold-standard methodology in program evaluation--MDRC assigned over 5,000 students to one of five program groups that were eligible for the incentive scholarship, to a group that was eligible for a scholarship without performance criteria, or to a control group that received their colleges' standard financial aid packages. This report analyzes three terms of follow-up data from the program in California. Overall, the findings in this report show the following: (1) The CFC-PBS Program was largely implemented as designed; (2) While few students received the entire amount of the scholarship for which they were eligible, most students received some funding. In this way, the design of the scholarship enabled more students to receive additional financial aid; (3) The CFC-PBS Program encouraged more students to matriculate, by about 5 percentage points above the control group rate of 84.4 percent. This increased matriculation largely occurred at community colleges. However, the program had only limited effects on persistence from semester to semester, and only for community college students.; (4) The program had positive impacts on academic success. These effects extend to numerous subgroups, such as males, females, and students of Latino ethnicity. There is strong evidence that the program affected students with lower high school GPAs more than students with higher high school GPAs; and (5) The cost to administer scholarships increased as performance requirements were added, but since on the whole, students received only a portion of the scholarship amount they were offered, the decrease in payments to students more than offset the increased cost of administration. All else being equal, scholarships with more performance requirements cost less than scholarships with fewer performance requirements. The following are appended: (1) Technical Appendix; (2) Supplementary Exhibits for Chapter 2; (3) Supplementary Exhibit for Chapter 3; (4) Supplementary Exhibits for Chapter 4; (5) Supplementary Information and Exhibits for Chapter 5; and (6) Supplementary Exhibits for Chapter 6. [This report was written with Drew McDermott.]

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. Department of Health and Human Services, the BIAS project aims to learn how tools from behavioral economics can improve the well-being of individuals and families served by programs that ACF supports. Many human services programs require clients to make active decisions and follow a series of steps in order to reap a benefit--from deciding to apply, to completing forms, to arranging for child care. Program designers often assume that individuals will carefully consider options, make decisions that maximize their well-being, and diligently follow through. Behavioral economics, which combines insights from psychology and economics, may help explain why these assumptions are not always borne out. By describing work in three sites, this report illustrates how the BIAS project draws on the principles of behavioral economics to design solutions for ACF programs. In partnership with program administrators, the BIAS team uses a method called "behavioral diagnosis and design" to delve into problems that program administrators have identified, diagnose potential bottlenecks that may inhibit program performance, and identify areas where a relatively easy and low-cost, behaviorally informed change might improve outcomes. Working with the Texas Office of the Attorney General's Child Support Division, the BIAS team explored ways to increase the number of incarcerated noncustodial parents who apply for a modification of their child support order, with the goal of preventing further accrual of child support arrears. The project team also engaged with the Illinois Department of Human Services and one of its job search contractors to identify behavioral interventions that could help increase the rate of engagement in job search assistance among clients who receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Finally, work with the National Domestic Violence Hotline (NDVH) focused on reducing the number of callers who reach a hold message but hang up before talking to an NDVH staffer. Working with the Texas Office of the Attorney General's Child Support Division, the BIAS team explored ways to increase the number of incarcerated noncustodial parents who apply for a modification of their child support order, with the goal of preventing further accrual of child support arrears. The project team also engaged with the Illinois Department of Human Services and one of its job search contractors to identify behavioral interventions that could help increase the rate of engagement in job search assistance among clients who receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Finally, work with the National Domestic Violence Hotline (NDVH) focused on reducing the number of callers who reach a hold message but hang up before talking to an NDVH staffer. Key Findings include the following: (1) The behavioral diagnosis and design process provides a means of identifying and addressing key reasons that programs may not be performing to expectation. The process can uncover behavioral bottlenecks that are amenable to behavioral solutions. It may also identify structural issues, such as a need to hire more staff, which are often outside the scope of the BIAS project. (2) The diagnosis process encourages program designers to step back and examine multiple possible explanations for underperformance before embracing a particular theory or solution. This may improve the likelihood of success of any behavioral intervention. As the project moves forward, the BIAS team will continue to work with public officials to design and apply behavioral interventions in ACF program areas to generate new ways of tackling problems. Promising interventions will be tested using rigorous research designs, employing experimental methods to reliably determine the impact of an intervention. Future publications will report the impacts of these interventions. "Glossary of Select Behavioral Economics Terms" is appended.

The cost of attending college has risen sharply over the last 40 years. Although more credit and grant aid have been made available to students, there are still major gaps between aid and the cost of attendance for many students in the United States, all of whom are left to figure out whether they can afford the remaining costs associated with attending college. Given that people with similar financial means may make different decisions about what they can and cannot afford to pay for college, it is difficult to identify a universal definition of affordability. Nevertheless, examining college cost, student financial need, and progress toward degree completion trends in concert with one another can help illuminate patterns of when college is unaffordable. This paper will develop a definition of college affordability by examining the literature on student financial need and student aid interventions as well as student data collected by MDRC to identify important indicators of college affordability and the lack thereof, which may ultimately help or impede college persistence and graduation. This paper provides a review of the literature on the relationships between unmet financial need and progress toward degree completion as well as a review of the findings from studies that show the effects of financial aid intervention on student persistence and completion. The paper then examines MDRC's experimental data from the Performance-Based Scholarship (PBS) Demonstration, a study spanning six states around the United States. Ultimately, this paper offers several puzzle pieces that fit together to help identify the students for whom college may not be affordable. It also offers recommendations for how policymakers in various sectors can respond to the affordability issues faced by the low-income students they serve and want to help to achieve success in college. [This paper was written with Melvin Gutierrez and Jessica Gingrich.]

In today's economy, employers' demand for an educated workforce is steadily rising. Policymakers, education leaders, and communities across the country recognize the need to improve college attendance and success, but are constrained by the current budgetary environment. Meanwhile students themselves face mounting college costs, and financial aid has not been able to keep pace. Performance-based scholarships aim to help reduce the financial burdens on low-income college students while providing incentives for good academic progress. Students are generally paid at multiple points during the semester if they earn a certain number of credits with a "C" average or better. MDRC is currently evaluating performance-based scholarship programs in six states. Interim results suggest that these programs do improve students' performance and increase the number of credits they earn, and in some states where data are available, they also appear to reduce student debt. In one location, the program also increased the proportion of students earning a degree. They work in a wide range of institutions and for a wide variety of students, including those normally at risk of performing poorly.

Low-income students are at particular risk of not persisting to earn a certificate or degree, often because of competing priorities, financial pressures, and inadequate preparation for college. One form of financial assistance designed explicitly to reward students' academic success is a performance-based scholarship, paid contingent on attaining academic benchmarks. MDRC's 2009 Opening Doors study of performance-based scholarships in Louisiana showed a positive effect on students' credit accumulation, grades, and persistence in college. In 2008, MDRC launched the Performance-Based Scholarship Demonstration, a study in six states that is testing whether different configurations of these scholarships in different locations and among different types of students would be equally effective in improving their outcomes. This brief summarizes findings in Louisiana, Ohio, New York, and New Mexico, which show modest but positive effects on important markers of academic progress. (Contains 2 figures, 1 table, and 11 notes.)

The intention of the program is that conditioning additional financial aid on certain behaviors will lead students to increase their effort towards their studies, which in turn will lead them to perform better in their classes in the short-term and progress through their degree requirements at a quicker rate in the medium-term. The program is hypothesized to result in increased enrollment in subsequent terms, increased credits attempted and earned, and increased financial aid. Increases in these short-term education outcomes may then lead to changes in medium- and long-term educational outcomes, including year-to-year persistence, total cumulative credits earned, as well as graduation or transfer to another postsecondary institution. The proposed presentation will focus on the primary research question: What is the impact of performance-based scholarships (in various settings with different types of students) on short-term academic outcomes as well as medium- and long-term academic outcomes? The authors will present current findings on these outcomes, across the six sites in their demonstration. (Contains 4 tables and 1 footnote.)

Many adult students struggle to finance their educations, often contending with work and child care expenses in addition to the extra cost of remedial courses. Moreover, there is little need-based grant aid to help. This report presents early findings from an evaluation of a program in New York City targeted to low-income adults (ages 22 to 35) who need remedial course work. Part of MDRC's national Performance-Based Scholarship (PBS) Demonstration, the program operated at Borough of Manhattan Community College and Hostos Community College, both part of the City University of New York, in 2008 and 2009. Participating students were eligible for either a $1,300 scholarship for two consecutive semesters (totaling up to $2,600) or for $1,300 for each of those semesters "and" one summer term (totaling up to $3,900), if they maintained at least part-time enrollment, met attendance benchmarks, and earned at least a "C" average across six credits of courses. Scholarships were paid directly to students in increments and did not supplant other aid for which students qualified. Early analyses of student transcripts for about 60 percent of the total sample suggest that the program: (1) Encouraged more full-time enrollment; and (2) Resulted in more students eligible for summer funding registering for summer courses. These findings suggest that incentive scholarships may increase full-time attendance and summer enrollment, which may, in turn, benefit low-income adults needing remediation by decreasing the time they need to earn degrees or certificates. Future reports will present impacts for the full sample on measures not covered here, including student retention, credit accumulation, graduation and transfer rates, motivation, and use of scholarship monies. Selected Characteristics of Sample Members at Baseline are appended. (Contains 6 tables, 1 figure, 2 boxes and 26 footnotes.) [Additional funding for this report was provided by the College Access Foundation of California, Foundation to Promote Open Society, Helios Education Foundation, NYC Center for Economic Opportunity, and The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services through the Ohio Board of Regents.]

In 2004, Lumina Foundation for Education launched "Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count," a national initiative aimed at improving success among community college students, particularly low-income students and students of color. Now encompassing more than 130 institutions in 24 states and the District of Columbia, Achieving the Dream helps community colleges build a "culture of evidence" by using student records and other data to examine students' performance over time and to identify barriers to academic progress. From there, community colleges are expected to develop intervention strategies designed to improve student outcomes; conduct further research on student progress; and bring effective programs to scale. As a result, it is anticipated that colleges will see measurable improvements over time in student outcomes, including increased progress through developmental education and college-level "gatekeeper" (introductory) courses, grades, persistence, and completion of credentials. This report examines the first 26 colleges to join Achieving the Dream in 2004 (known as the "Round 1" colleges), and tracks their progress through spring 2009. The key findings are: (1) Four out of five Round 1 colleges adopted practices associated with a moderate to strong culture of evidence; (2) Colleges that made the greatest strides shared several key characteristics; (3) Colleges instituted a wide range of strategies to improve student achievement, but a majority of them remained small in scale; (4) Achieving the Dream had an important influence on most colleges; and (5) Trends in student outcomes remained relatively unchanged, with a few exceptions. (Contains 1 figure, 2 tables, 1 box, and 3 footnotes.) [For the full report, see ED516014.]

While studies have examined the relationship between financial aid and college access, few have evaluated the relationship between financial aid and academic success. Factors that are associated with financial need, such as being low income, are also associated with a lack of academic success, making it difficult to isolate the effect of additional financial aid on student achievement. MDRC's Opening Doors study of performance-based scholarships in Louisiana is one of a handful of studies that was able to measure the effect of additional aid on academic success. As part of the study, two colleges implemented a performance-based scholarship program for low-income parents, providing students with scholarships of up to $1,000 for each of two semesters (up to $2,000 per student in total), paid in increments based on each student's success in meeting key benchmarks. An evaluation of the intervention showed that the scholarship had a number of positive effects for students. Building on the promising findings from the Louisiana study, MDRC launched the Performance-Based Scholarship (PBS) Demonstration in four states in 2008. The goal of the PBS Demonstration is to evaluate whether performance-based scholarships are an effective way to improve persistence among low-income college students in different geographical locations with different amounts of monies over different durations. This brief provides an introduction to the PBS project and describes the program designs of the sites currently participating in the demonstration. (Contains 2 tables and 9 notes.)

MDRC launched the Opening Doors demonstration to test four distinct interventions that were designed to help more students persist in community college and accomplish their academic and personal goals. This report describes the impacts of a performance-based scholarship program with a counseling component on academic success and persistence among low-income parents. Students who participated in the program, which was operated at two New Orleans-area colleges as part of MDRC's multisite Opening Doors demonstration, were more likely to stay in school, get higher grades, and earn more credits. Key findings from this report include the following: (1) The Opening Doors program encouraged more students to register for college; (2) The program increased persistence; (3) The program increased the number of credits that students earned; and (4) The program had positive impacts on a range of social and psychological outcomes. (Contains 30 tables, 11 figures, and 2 boxes.) [Additional funding was provided by The MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Socioeconomic Status and Health, The MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood, The Kresge Foundation, The Sandler Foundation, and The Starr Foundation.]

Learning communities are a popular strategy that community colleges nationwide have embraced in support of developmental students. In a learning community, a cohort of students takes two or more courses linked by integrated themes and assignments that are developed through ongoing faculty collaboration. While the number of learning community programs continues to grow, rigorous studies measuring their effectiveness are limited. To address this need for evidence, the Learning Communities demonstration, launched in 2007, uses random assignment to test models of learning communities at six community colleges: Kingsborough Community College, Queensborough Community College, Hillsborough Community College, Merced College, Houston Community College System, and Community College of Baltimore County. The study is designed to determine: (1) how learning communities can be designed to address the needs of academically underprepared students; (2) the effects of learning communities on student achievement, as measured by test scores, credits earned, and grades; (3) the effects of learning communities on students' persistence in higher education; and (4) what learning communities cost and how these costs compare with the costs of standard college programs for students with low basic skills. Preliminary findings will be available in 2009. This working paper describes the study's design, including a summary of the theoretical and empirical research relevant to learning communities, descriptions of the sites and their learning community models, the random assignment procedures, and plans for data analysis. (Contains 7 tables, 1 figure, and 67 notes.) [This paper was produced by the National Center for Postsecondary Research. It was written with the assistance of Oscar Cerna, Christine Sansone, and Michelle Ware.]

Employment has long been held to be an important deterrent against poverty, and work is a core component of a range of federal efforts to improve the economic well-being of low-income families. However, recent trends in earnings and research both confirm that work alone is not sufficient to prevent poverty. While there is compelling evidence that additional years of schooling and advanced education credentials are associated with higher earnings, evaluations of education and basic skills training programs have yielded mixed results concerning their ability to increase earnings among low-income populations. This paper summarizes what is known from evaluations about the effectiveness of education acquisition to advance the earnings and careers of low-wage workers. The paper then discusses two popular community college strategies intended to increase academic success among this population: enhanced student services and performance-based scholarships. Recent research about performance-based scholarships suggests that they can have a large, positive effect on academic achievement among a predominately female, single-parent student population that faces multiple barriers to completing college. (Contains 6 footnotes and 3 tables.)

Community colleges, which tend to be more accessible and affordable than other postsecondary institutions, are a critical resource for low-income people striving to improve their prospects in the labor market and in life. Yet nearly half of students who begin at community colleges leave school before receiving a credential. Research by MDRC and others suggests that many community college students want to earn a degree but are overwhelmed by the competing demands of work, family, and school. Institutional barriers, such as poorly tailored instruction, insufficient financial aid, or inadequate advising, may also impede their academic progress. In 2003, MDRC launched the Opening Doors demonstration project to study the effects of innovative programs designed to help students stay in school and succeed. Six colleges in four states are taking part in the demonstration. This report presents early findings from Louisiana Opening Doors, an enhanced financial aid program targeting low-income parents at two community colleges in the New Orleans area: Delgado Community College and Louisiana Technical College-West Jefferson. This program was designed to help students with their expenses and provide an incentive to make good academic progress. Students randomly assigned to Opening Doors were offered a $1,000 scholarship for each of two semesters, in addition to the regular financial aid they qualified for, if they enrolled at least half time and earned at least a C average. They also received enhanced counseling. Students in a control group received only regular financial aid and the counseling available to all students. The early findings in Louisiana are compelling and suggest that a performance-based scholarship can indeed have a positive effect on persistence and academic achievement among a student population that faces multiple barriers to completing college. The students in Opening Doors were more likely to enroll in college full time, passed more courses, earned more course credits, and had higher rates of persistence. (Contains 30 endnotes, 3 tables, and 1 figure.) [The opening Doors Project was also funded by MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Socioeconomic Status and Health; MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood.]

This paper examines how controlling statistically for baseline covariates (especially pretests) improves the precision of studies that randomize schools to measure the impacts of educational interventions on student achievement. Part I of the paper introduces the concepts, issues, and options involved. Parts II and III present empirical findings that illustrate how precision is influenced by a wide range of different covariates. These findings were based on multiple years of individual data for student test scores in reading and math from five urban school districts. They represent grades three and five for elementary schools, grade eight for middle schools, and grade ten for high schools. Part IV of the paper compares its results to those of previous research, presents an approach for quantifying uncertainty about its results, and considers what further research is needed. Findings indicate that: (1) pretests can reduce the number of randomized schools required for a given level of precision to about one-half of what would be needed otherwise for elementary schools, one-fifth for middle schools, and one-tenth for high schools; (2) aggregate school-level pretests are as effective in this regard as are individual student-level pretests; (3) the precision-enhancing power of pretests declines somewhat, but not much, as the number of years between the pretest and post-tests increases; (4) the precision enhancing power of pretests for multiple baseline years is only slightly greater than that for a single baseline year; and (5) the precision-enhancing power of pretests is substantial, even when the pretest differs from the post-test. Appended is: Additional Detailed Findings by Grade and Subject. (Contains 49 tables.) [Supplemental support for the production of this report was provided by the Judith Gueron Fund for Methodological Innovation in Social Policy Research at MDRC. Dissemination of MDRC publications is also supported by The Starr Foundation.]

A study assessed Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) implementation and effects in Cuyahoga County between 1992-2000. It used field research, surveys and interviews of current and former welfare recipients, state and county welfare and employment records, and indicators of social and economic trends. Findings indicated Cuyahoga County remade its welfare system in response to TANF. It instituted new policies and services to divert families from welfare, promote employment, and enforce time limits. Welfare receipt declined in the county, and employment among welfare recipients increased. The economy and other factors appeared to have driven these trends. However, TANF encouraged long-term welfare recipients to leave the rolls faster and discouraged food stamp recipients from coming onto cash assistance. A longitudinal survey of former and ongoing welfare mothers in Cleveland's poorest neighborhoods showed substantial increases in employment. These changes were not necessarily due to welfare reform; they might reflect the economy and maturation of women and their children. The number of neighborhoods with a high concentration of welfare recipients declined. (Contains 127 references.) (YLB)