Document Category: Practitioner Guide

Connecting College Students with Public Benefits Programs (2024)

Colleges and universities can support their most at-risk
students by providing pre-screening and application
assistance for public benefits as a campus resource.
Benefits coordination can have a big impact, but this type
of basic needs program is relatively rare: a recent analysis
of nearly 450 postsecondary institutions found that only
18 percent offered public benefits access facilitation.
This toolkit outlines key steps that institutions can take
to support their students in accessing public benefits.

A Guide for Implementation of the #RealCollege Survey (2024)

Basic needs security includes access to stable housing, healthy food, affordable childcare, reliable transportation, mental and physical health services, technology and internet, and other survival necessities. Meeting college students’ basic needs is essential to their well-being and ability to succeed in college. A key first step is assessing students’ basic needs security. The #RealCollege Survey was the nation’s first multi-institutional assessment of basic needs security among college students. When it was created in 2015, neither the federal government nor any state captured information on the topic. The goal of the survey is to equip colleges with the information needed to support their students holistically. It has been administered at more than 700 colleges and in many cases statewide. Numerous examples of reports using data from the survey are available in the #RealCollege Resource Library. The #RealCollege Survey has inspired the federal government, many states, and countless other researchers to examine and collect data on students’ basic needs. We are now making it freely available for use by postsecondary institutions, their partners, and states to understand students’ needs for support and the challenges they face in accessing help. This guide is intended to support administration, analysis, and dissemination of findings from the #RealCollege Survey. It provides key considerations for fielding the survey, including selecting participants, selecting the questions and modules to use, maximizing participation, minimizing bias, analyzing the data, and disseminating findings. An accompanying appendix lists the survey questions. Please acknowledge any use of this guide and/or questions in your reporting

Building Support for College Affordability: Messaging Resources for Advocates

Boosting broad support for college affordability and access for all in California is possible with the right messages and messengers.

As part of its work to help more low-income students and students of color attain a college degree, we have invested in new messaging research to build support for college access and affordability in California. Our goal is to help advocates develop communications that effectively win support and mobilize diverse audiences to take action.

Products of the research include a guide lifting up key messages and strategies to make a powerful case for college affordability, as well as a video catalog promoting the recommendations featuring students, parents, and a guidance counselor.

The Haas, Jr. Fund commissioned messaging experts Wonder: Strategies for Good and Goodwin-Simon Strategic Research to conduct this research based on input and guidance from a broad group of partner organizations. The findings are based on an online survey of 1,200 registered California voters, as well as a focus group of diverse Californians.

We invite our partners to use these materials to make a powerful and aligned case for action to create a debt-free pathway to and through college for more students in California and nationwide.

Emergency Support, with a Human Touch (2024)

Faculty and Students Together (FAST) Funds offer emergency aid to students. From bus passes and groceries to textbooks and rent, FAST Funds jump in to help keep students on track. The first FAST Fund was started seven years ago by AFT Local 212 at Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC). That first year, the fund helped about 26 students with around $7,000 of emergency aid. Growth has been tremendous, especially in the last few years. In July and August 2023 alone, MATC’s FAST Fund helped 433 students with $105,000 in aid. (For a short case study describing how the Local 212/MATC FAST Fund got started and how quickly it has grown, see go.aft.org/30a.)

We sat down with Liz Franczyk, director of the Local 212/MATC FAST Fund, to learn how the fund meets students’ needs and how more AFT unions can start their own FAST Funds.

Community Colleges and Human Services Nonprofits BOOSTing Family Economic Success Through Organizational Policy and Practice (2023)

The BOOST initiative connects families with low incomes to critical human services supports and educational and career pathways to advance multigenerational family economic success. In six cities — Baltimore, Maryland; Green Bay, Wisconsin; Hartford, Connecticut; New York City (Queens); Portland, Oregon; and Syracuse, New York— community colleges and human services nonprofits have partnered to support the economic advancement of families as part of the BOOST initiative. The partners at these BOOST sites are guided by six core tenets that advance family social and economic success: partnership, learning, lifetime and springboard jobs, sustainability, racial equity, and the two-generation (2Gen) approach, also sometimes referred to as the whole-family approach, as defined by Ascend at the Aspen Institute.
BOOST partnerships place a particular emphasis on racial equity—both the process and outcome of seeking to understand and address the programmatic, institutional, and policy barriers families of color face in higher education and human services systems. Over time, BOOST partners have deepened their understanding of systemic racism and how it influences individual and organizational thinking and are now shifting their organizational practices to support more equitable outcomes.
This brief explores how community colleges and human services nonprofits can partner to advance multigenerational family economic success and how these partners can lean into their unique strengths as they seek to achieve this goal. It looks at how the six BOOST sites are working to change policies and access funding at the institutional, state, and federal levels to support their partnership goals. It also highlights practices and insights learned from the BOOST initiative, with the intent of aiding and accelerating other efforts to follow this collaborative path.

Supporting Students Experiencing Homelessness Pilot Program (2023)

Basic needs insecurity is a critical barrier to college students’ access1 and success, undermining persistence and completion rates for postsecondary students.2 In Washington, college students face significant challenges in meeting their housing and other basic needs while completing their credentials. Gaps in covering critical costs such as housing and food are pervasive among students in both two-year and four-year institutions. Students of color and students who experience marginalization based on their identities and circumstances — such as former foster youth, LGBTQI+ students, and students with dependents — are disproportionately impacted.3 To address this need, the Washington state Legislature enacted the Supporting Students Experiencing Homelessness (SSEH) pilot program with 2SSB 5800 (2019). The Legislature expanded the pilot program twice — first by passing SHB 1166 (2021) and again through a proviso in the 2022 supplemental budget. The Legislature made the SSEH pilot permanent through the passage of ESSB 5702 (2023). SSEH provides grants for colleges to build systems to identify and support students facing homelessness and students who aged out of the foster care system. The Washington Student Achievement Council (WSAC) and the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC) administered the four-year SSEH pilot program, which consisted of 33 programs across six public baccalaureate institutions (PBIs) and 27 in the community and technical college system (CTCs).