This guide describes how to perform two types of studies: • Surveys to assess basic needs security; and • Opportunistic small scale experiments to evaluate the effectiveness of programs meant to address basic needs security.
This study investigates whether financial grants, allocated based on need rather than major, improves odds that economically vulnerable students will pursue science, technology, engineering, and/or mathematics (STEM) degrees. We implemented a privately-funded financial aid program in Wisconsin and conducted a randomized experiment of its effects for low and moderate-income students at 10 two-year and four-year colleges and universities. The additional financial support greatly increased the probability that students would persist in pursuing a STEM major and/or switch to a STEM major by the third year of school. However, it did not change the odds that students would remain enrolled. Implications for educational opportunity, practice, and policy are discussed.
Despite overall increases in college-going, college enrollment rates
remain inequitable. Many programs attempt to address these persistent racial/ethnic and social class disparities in college attendance by
intervening in the high school curriculum. Advancement Via
Individual Determination (AVID) is among the longest standing and
prevalent of these college access programs. In this paper, we present
findings from a multi-year evaluation and cost analysis of the AVID/
TOPS program – an enhanced AVID model – in place in Madison
Metropolitan School District (Wisconsin). Taken together, the evaluation’s findings characterize AVID/TOPS as a promising program
model that is associated with an increased likelihood for college
readiness and matriculation, particularly for student groups underrepresented in higher education. We also report on the resources and
costs required to implement the program, and show that the program’s benefits appear to exceed its costs.
Students with children are a growing presence in higher education, but apart from being labeled “nontraditional” their prospects for degree completion are poorly understood. How does parenting while in college make students vulnerable? How does it make them stronger? To address these questions this exploratory study draws on a panel study of young, low-income Wisconsin college students that includes administrative, survey, and interview data. Findings suggest that while parenting students have divergent college pathways compared to their peers, those pathways do not always indicate disadvantage. At the same time, it is also clear that they would benefit from additional supports.