GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) is a federal program designed to promote college access and success for students from low-income backgrounds. Although some literature has examined K-12 outcomes, little research has explored the extent to which GEAR UP achieves its intended postsecondary objectives. The…

The Housing Choice Voucher program is currently the largest federally funded housing assistance program. Although the program aims to provide housing assistance, it also could affect children's educational outcomes by stabilizing their families, enabling them to move to better homes, neighborhoods, and schools, and increasing their disposable…

Although many summer undergraduate research programs made the decision to delay, cancel, or suspend their summer experiences in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Morehouse College McNair Scholars Program instead offered a completely virtual summer research experience to 14 Scholars with faculty-led remote research. The program…

The Race to the Top (RTTT) federal grant program was an initiative that targeted improving Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education. However, the evaluation of the program reported only student outcomes for mathematics and reading/language arts. The purpose of this study was to estimate the effects of RTTT program on…

The High School Aerospace Scholars (HAS) program is an out-of-school-time (OST) science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) program that aims to encourage and inspire Texas high school students to pursue STEM degrees and careers. The program gives Texas high school juniors the opportunity to participate in an interactive online…

Many of the positive changes seen in education reform over the past few decades--from replication of high-quality charter schools to expansion of teacher residency programs--have been made possible, at least in part, through partnerships with AmeriCorps and other national service programs. Under the Trump administration's current proposal to cut…

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is essential to improving the health and nutrition among low-income individuals. During Fiscal Year 2017, over 42 million people living in nearly 21 million households received SNAP in the United States. Within the Mountain Plains Region (Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska,…

The current study attempted to investigate the nature and impact of home math talk of low-income primary caregivers of Head Start children during home cooking (N = 46). Using hierarchical regression analysis, we examined the predictability of total math talk and specific types of math talk (i.e., number talk, operation talk, and measurement talk)…

The federal government spends an estimated $273 million annually on financial literacy1 and education programs and activities across 23 federal agencies and entities. These programs are designed to educate Americans about a wide array of financial literacy and education topics. However, in 2012, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a…

This dissertation includes three chapters focusing on policies directly related to improving college access and success. The first chapter focuses on lifetime eligibility of federal and state financial aid policies. The Pell Grant plays a critical role in helping students across the US to afford undergraduate education. In spite of its importance…

This report introduces the MyGoals for Employment Success demonstration. MyGoals is an employment coaching program that helps participants set and achieve goals. It seeks to do so by explicitly focusing attention on participants' executive skills. MyGoals also offers participants a set of financial incentives to encourage, facilitate, and reward…

This qualitative research study describes how a Midwest community college's implementation of an Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (SSTEM) program influences engineering identity development for its students with financial need. Using a phenomenological approach, the study finds that the program enables community…

This study examines the impact of a federal Teacher Incentive Fund grant award that expanded a partnership between Cross County School District and the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET) to create systems that support ongoing, continuous improvement for teachers. Through the implementation of the TAP System for Teacher and…

The Adult Education--Basic Grants to States program authorized under the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act of 1998 (AEFLA), enacted as Title II of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA) (P.L. 105-220), was the major source of federal support for adult basic education (ABE) and literacy education programs for the 2013-14 program year…

The Adult Education--Basic Grants to States program authorized under the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act of 1998 (AEFLA), enacted as Title II of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA) (P.L. 105-220), was the major source of federal support for adult basic education (ABE) and literacy education programs for the 2014-15 program year…