The pandemic created daunting challenges for higher education. The federal government provided California Community Colleges billions of dollars in aid for students and institutions. How did they use these funds? How well did their pandemic recovery activities and investments help reengage students? What will institutions do when the money runs…

As college promise programs proliferate across the United States with noted intentions to promote access through increased affordability, it is necessary to understand the relationship between these programs and other forms of financial aid, including loans. Using federal, state, and program-level data, we leverage a natural experiment to estimate…

Purpose: Public universities are intent on increasing degree completion for many reasons. A stronger policy focus on completion and interest in removing students' financial hurdles has led to a rapid proliferation of completion grant programs. This paper reports on a mixed method implementation study of completion grant programs at seven broad-…

Indiana, Oklahoma, and Washington have programs designed to address college enrollment and completion gaps by offering a promise of state-based college financial aid to low-income middle school students in exchange for making a pledge to do well in high school, be a good citizen, not be convicted of a felony, and apply for financial aid to…

Given the proliferation of college promise programs and the increasing popularity of last-dollar designs, we explore changes to states' financial aid resource environments following the adoption of two of the largest and longest-operating state programs: Tennessee Promise and Oregon Promise. We leverage descriptive tools and a causal-inference…

Food insecurity is widespread among college students in the United States. Food benefits delivered through the CalFresh program, California's version of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), can reduce hunger by helping students pay for groceries, but may not reach all eligible students. To date, higher education systems…

The United States (US) does not formally count, recognize, or support students in higher education who are caregivers, unlike England and Australia. This mixed-methods study presents results from a new survey of caregiving undergraduate and graduate students at a large university in the US. Students (N = 7592; 62.7% White, 69.9% women) reported…

Food insecurity is widespread among college students in the United States. CalFresh food benefits, known federally as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, can help students in California pay for food, but may not reach all eligible students. To better measure student participation in CalFresh, the California Policy Lab (CPL)…

Food insecurity is widespread among college students in the United States. CalFresh food benefits, known federally as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, can help students in California pay for food, but may not reach all eligible students. To better measure student participation in CalFresh, the California Policy Lab (CPL)…

Indiana, Oklahoma, and Washington have programs designed to address college enrollment and completion gaps by offering a promise of state-based college financial aid to low-income middle school students in exchange for making a pledge to do well in high school, be a good citizen, not be convicted of a felony, and apply for financial aid to…

Over the past decade, the federal government has made substantial efforts to simplify the college-going process and help students to evaluate college choices. These low-cost strategies aimed at improving college access and success by helping students to make informed decisions about college warrant assessment. This study examines the impact of a…

This paper presents new estimates of the effects of the City University of New York's (CUNY's) Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) model, evaluated using a randomized controlled trial first in New York and later through a replication in Ohio. It presents longer-term effects of CUNY ASAP in New York, showing that the program's effect on…

Nationwide, graduation rates at community colleges are discouragingly low. This randomized experiment provides evidence that graduation rates can be increased dramatically. The City University of New York's (CUNY) Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) is a comprehensive, integrated, 3-year program that has an estimated 18 percentage point…

A growing body of research indicates that proactive outreach from high schools and college access organizations about college preparation tasks, and specifically focusing on completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), results in increased college enrollment. Comparatively less attention has been paid to the role of colleges…

Three out of four jobs now require education or training beyond high school, yet some students face formidable barriers to attending college. Disruptions to K-12 education, trauma, loss, food insecurity, and housing instability are known impediments to the educational success of youth who have been in foster care. These types of challenges may…