Detroit students who obtain a college degree overcome many obstacles to do so. This article reports the results of a randomized evaluation of a program meant to provide support to low-income community college students. The Detroit Promise Path program was designed to complement an existing College Promise scholarship, providing students with…

College education plays a crucial role in upward social mobility. However, despite applying to and being accepted by colleges, students often fail to matriculate -- a phenomenon known as "summer melt". The summer after high school graduation is a vulnerable period for these students due to limited counseling support from both high…

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…

Many students enter college without the skills and knowledge needed to successfully perform college-level work. An important leverage point for increasing college readiness is the transition from high school to college. One strategy implemented at postsecondary institutions to ease this transition, boost academic and social readiness, and foster…

"Summer counseling" is designed to help college-intending high school graduates complete the steps needed to enroll in college and start their college careers. These programs provide services during the months between high school graduation and college enrollment and involve outreach by college counselors or peer mentors via text…

Boston University's (BU) CityLab program was created in 1991 as a partnership between faculty members of BU's School of Medicine and School of Education in response to the first call for proposals under the Science Education Partnership Awards initiative of the National Institutes of Health. CityLab's founders recognized the need for CityLab, a…

A report released in April 2013 by Benjamin L Castleman of Harvard University and Lindsay C. Page of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University examines the implications of two forms of interventions during the summer between high school and the first year of college on college enrollment. "Summer Nudging: Can Personalized…

Technology-facilitated interventions following high school graduation have shown promise for increasing the likelihood of college matriculation, but we know little about how to fine-tune these tools. I conducted an experiment in which college-intending Tennessee high school graduates received informational messages in distinct behavioral frames:…

Postsecondary education is widely seen as a necessity in the modern economy. Yet students at community colleges often face steep odds when it comes to completing a degree. Community colleges serve many low-income and first-generation students as well as students of color, all of whom must contend with many obstacles to success. At the same time,…

Despite decades of policy intervention to increase college entry and success among low-income students, considerable gaps by socioeconomic status remain. To date, policymakers have overlooked the summer after high school as an important time period in students' transition to college, yet recent research documents high rates of summer attrition…

Postsecondary education is widely seen as a necessity in the modern economy. Yet students at community colleges often face steep odds when it comes to completing a degree. Community colleges serve many low-income and first-generation students as well as students of color, all of whom must contend with many obstacles to success. At the same time,…

The tenth annual Boston Opportunity Agenda Report Card takes a closer look at the impact of two years of pandemic on the achievement of students on key indicators from kindergarten through college and adult education. It finds mixed results for Boston's public and public charter school students, with some areas seeing much larger changes triggered…

"Summer bridge programs" are designed to ease the transition to college and support postsecondary success by providing students with the academic skills and social resources needed to succeed in a college environment. These programs occur in the summer "bridge" period between high school and college. Although the content of…

The ninth annual Boston Opportunity Agenda Report Card looks at how the pandemic has affected many of the indicators used to track how Boston students are doing in education from early childhood through adulthood, as well as tracking the landscape of the Opportunity Agenda's efforts to strengthen the education pipeline. This report card contains…

This article explores the development of the Summer Tools, Information, Motivation, and Education (SummerTIME) Writing Program, the only program of its kind in Los Angeles that conducts self-assessment. The author describes the geographical and political boundaries separating inner-city Los Angeles high school graduates from higher education,…