1,720,989 research outputs found
Learning from Students: How Longitudinal Mixed-Methods Research Can Change What We “Know”
No full textDr. Sara Goldrick-Rab is author of Paying the Price, College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream, senior fellow at Education Northwest, sociology professor at the Community College of Philadelphia, and founder of Believe in Students, the #RealCollege movement, and the original Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice.
Nearly 1 in 2 college students starts college but does not finish. Colleges and universities are full of professionals with opinions about why. This session will share what happened when researchers engaged in longitudinal mixed-methods research to examine this challenge among a group of 3,000 low-income students. We’ll think together about how iterative and multi-facted data collection can facilitate the acquisition of new knowledge, test emerging hypotheses, and lead to new conclusions.
This session is moderated by Claire Nickerson and Ashley Wilson.https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/irdl-speakerseries-2025/1001/thumbnail.jp
The Transformation of Higher Education: The New Economics of College and their Consequences [Video]
No full textSara Goldrick-Rab is Professor of Higher Education Policy & Sociology at Temple University, and Founder of the Wisconsin HOPE Lab, the nation’s only translational research laboratory seeking ways to make college more affordable. She is the author, most recently, of Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream (University of Chicago, 2016), an Amazon best-seller that has been featured on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, the New York Review of Books, and CSPAN’s Book TV, among other venues.
Dr. Goldrick-Rab considers herself a scholar-activist whose work aims to reduce socioeconomic and racial inequalities in general and to ameliorate inequities in college attainment in particular. Her commitment to scholar-activism is evidenced by her broad profile of research and writing dissecting the intended and unintended consequences of the college-for-all movement in the United States. In more than a dozen experimental, longitudinal, and mixed-methods studies, she has examined the efficacy and distributional implications of financial aid policies, welfare reform, transfer practices, and a range of interventions aimed at increasing college attainment among marginalized populations. She provides extensive service to local, state, and national communities, working directly with governors and state legislators to craft policies to make college more affordable, collaborating with non-profit organizations seeking to examine the effects of their practices, and providing technical assistance to Congressional staff, think tanks, and membership organizations throughout Washington, DC.
Part of the Chautauqua Lecture Series: Transformations (2017-2018
Beyond the Food Pantry: Supporting #RealCollege Students During COVID-19
Full text linkColleges and universities across the United States and around the world are scrambling to keep their students, faculty, and staff healthy, safe, and educated during the COVID-19 pandemic. As experts on the daily crises that derail #RealCollege students and prevent them from completing their degrees our team at the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice offers the following considerations and resources to support your work
NEPC Review: The Effects of School Vouchers on College Enrollment: Experimental Evidence from New York City
Full text linkThis report examines college enrollment rates of students participating in an experimental New York School Choice Scholarships Foundation Program, which in the spring of 1997 offered 3-year scholarships worth up to $1,400 annually to low-income families. The study identifies no overall impacts of the voucher offer, but the authors report and emphasize large positive impacts for African American students, including increases in college attendance, full-time enrollment, and attendance at private, selective institutions of higher education. This strong focus on positive impacts for a single subgroup of students is not warranted. There are no statistically significant differences in the estimated impact for African-Americans as compared to other students; there is important but unmentioned measurement error in the dependent variables (college attendance outcomes) affecting the precision of those estimates and likely moving at least some of them out of the realm of statistical significance; the authors fail to demonstrate any estimated negative effects that could help explain the average null results; and there are previously existing differences between the African-American treatment and control groups on factors known to matter for college attendance (e.g., parental education). Contrary to the report’s claim, the evidence presented suggests that in this New York City program, school vouchers did not improve college enrollment rates among all students or even among a selected subgroup of students.</p
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Promoting Academic Momentum at Community Colleges: Challenges and Opportunities
Full text linkThe expansion of the American community college has not been matched by the rapid, or even consistent, progress of all entering students toward postsecondary credentials. Instead, a significant proportion of students enrolled in community colleges appear "stuck" on the road to completion. This lack of progress is due to the complex ways in which social and educational inequalities affect specific students and the institutions of higher education designated to serve them. As a result, policymakers and practitioners face significant challenges in their efforts to promote academic momentum. In the first part of this literature review, the sources of these challenges are located in student characteristics as well as in state and institutional practices and policies. It is argued that there exists an interaction of sorts between the actions of community colleges and the attributes of their students. Acknowledging the myriad complexities in efforts to improve the progress of all two-year students toward goal or degree completion, the second part of this paper examines empirical research to identify opportunities for improvement
President Obama’s free community-college plan is a necessary plan – and a good one.
No full textLast week, President Obama announced that community college will be made free for all students for the first two years of study. Sara Goldrick-Rab welcomes the announcement, which will be especially helpful for less affluent families who spend a large proportion of their family income on college. She writes that the next steps in improving college affordability should include making the first two years of college free at four-year colleges and universities, increases in per-student funding, and coverage of students’ living expenses, books, and supplies
NEPC Review: The Effects of School Vouchers on College Enrollment: Experimental Evidence from New York City
Full text linkThis report examines college enrollment rates of students participating in an experimental New York School Choice Scholarships Foundation Program, which in the spring of 1997 offered 3-year scholarships worth up to $1,400 annually to low-income families. The study identifies no overall impacts of the voucher offer, but the authors report and emphasize large positive impacts for African American students, including increases in college attendance, full-time enrollment, and attendance at private, selective institutions of higher education. This strong focus on positive impacts for a single subgroup of students is not warranted. There are no statistically significant differences in the estimated impact for African-Americans as compared to other students; there is important but unmentioned measurement error in the dependent variables (college attendance outcomes) affecting the precision of those estimates and likely moving at least some of them out of the realm of statistical significance; the authors fail to demonstrate any estimated negative effects that could help explain the average null results; and there are previously existing differences between the African-American treatment and control groups on factors known to matter for college attendance (e.g., parental education). Contrary to the report’s claim, the evidence presented suggests that in this New York City program, school vouchers did not improve college enrollment rates among all students or even among a selected subgroup of students.</p
Alleviating Poverty And Promoting College Attainment in Philadelphia
No full textPhiladelphia’s poverty is often attributed to its relatively low rate of college attainment. About half of the residents of Boston and Washington D.C. hold bachelor’s degrees, compared with only about one-quarter of Philadelphians. This puts us at a disadvantage, since college degrees in both academic and technical fields have widespread payoffs for communities. This report points out that efforts to fight poverty and improve well-being throughout Philadelphia must therefore include targeted interventions to grow its college-educated workforce.The Hope Cente
The Real Price of College. College Completion Series: Part Two
No full textThe high price of college is the subject of media headlines, policy debates, and dinner table conversations because of its implications for educational opportunities, student and family pocketbooks, and the economy. Financial challenges are a consistent predictor of noncompletion in higher education, and they are becoming more severe over time. In this report, the authors describe research conducted by the Wisconsin HOPE Lab that explains why the sticker price is often understated, while the availability of financial aid to create a lower net price is often overstated. The authors point out that many institutions underestimate the costs of living while in college, the ancillary costs of academic programs (books, supplies), and the expenses that students face related to health care and family emergencies. They describe how these costs arise and how students experience them, drawing on three studies that utilize administrative, survey, and qualitative data. The data suggest that these are but some of the costs unaccounted for in institutions’ statistics—in this exploratory work. They also discuss evidence from several studies indicating that financial aid tends to diminish during college.The Century Foundatio
The Wisconsin Covenant: Toward a Truly Merit-Based System of Higher Education
No full textGovernor Doyle recently proposed the Wisconsin Covenant to make college more accessible to low-income residents. This policy brief explains why this is an important goal and how the proposal should be designed to best achieve its objectives?and at a reasonable cost.
The reality of higher education in Wisconsin is that high school graduates from low-income families are much less likely to attend college even when they have the same academic qualifications as wealthier students. This has significant consequences for those students and their families and, just as importantly, reduces the quality of life for the entire state. Moreover, this reality conflicts with the notion that educational access should be based on merit rather than family wealth.
We propose three principles for designing the Covenant policy to address the current system?s problems. The Covenant should: (a) provide scholarships based on merit and financial need; (b) offer grant aid?not loans?that covers tuition, fees, and some living expenses; and (c) include significant academic and application support to help ensure that students can meet the Covenant challenge
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