In Spring 2025, the Washington Student Achievement Council (WSAC) launched one of its most concentrated financial aid outreach campaigns yet. The goal: Raise Washington's historically low Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) completion rates so more students could access the aid they deserve. With only three months left in the school…

As of 2011, 31 million adults in the United States had some college credit but had not earned a postsecondary credential, defined in this brief as a near-completer. This brief provides an overview of the 2017 near-completer policy landscape and a detailed review of three states implementing innovative outreach to this population. State example…

While the national high school graduation rates for culturally and linguistically diverse students have increased in the last five years, less than half of these students transition from high school to postsecondary settings. In this article we share the lessons learned from nearly a decade of college access and career readiness efforts by a…

The Pathways for Academic Career and Employment (PACE) program is established to provide funding to community colleges for the development of programs that will lead to gainful, quality, in-state employment for members of target populations by providing them with both effective academic and employment training to ensure gainful employment and…

The pathways for academic career and employment program (PACE) is established to provide funding to community colleges for the development of projects that will lead to gainful, quality, in-state employment for members of target populations by providing them with both effective academic and employment training to ensure gain. This is the second…

The pathways for academic career and employment program (PACE) is established to provide funding to community colleges for the development of projects that will lead to gainful, quality, in-state employment for members of target populations by providing them with both effective academic and employment training to ensure gain. This is the fourth…

The pathways for academic career and employment program (PACE) is established to provide funding to community colleges for the development of projects that will lead to gainful, quality, in-state employment for members of target populations by providing them with both effective academic and employment training to ensure gain. This is the third…

Many states are experimenting with mechanisms for making college more affordable while maintaining quality and access. This report examines promising or innovative state programs to improve college affordability and credential attainment. Many of these approaches show innovative thinking and bear watching to see if they result in meaningful…

This instructional school-based outreach guide is designed to help state Medicaid and state Child Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) agencies to initiate and sustain school-based outreach targeted to children potentially eligible for enrollment in Medicaid and SCHIP programs. Based on a review of state best practices undertaken by the U.S.…

This guide provides engagement specialists with information to help them build strong, lasting partnerships with employers and labor partners that translate into life-changing opportunities for the youth of California through the School-to-Career initiative (STC). (Companion guides for associations, labor unions and employers are available…

Since the passage of legislation (Public Act 85-283) requiring Illinois colleges to report every 3 years the progress made to increase the participation and advancement of underrepresented groups, the state's community colleges have used both special population grant funds and local college funds to address the needs of these groups. This report…

This paper, one of a series from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education's project "Higher Education and the Economy of the West," describes 31 programs in 16 western states that illustrates higher education's contribution to the economy. Four school-university partnerships are described: the Pueblo School District 60/University of…

Texas's Project RIO (Re-Integration of Offenders), which was developed in cooperation with the National Institute of Justice, National Institute of Corrections, and U.S. Department of Education's Office of Correctional Education, began in 1985 as a two-city pilot program to place parolees in jobs. Project RIO has since expanded steadily and now…