Search

As of 2023, 43.6 million borrowers owe more than $1.7 trillion in student loan debt. However, there is another, often overlooked, institutional debt that students may owe their former institutions after stopping out. It is estimated that 6.6 million students owe $15 billion in unpaid balances to their institutions. This institutional debt stems from various parts of campus including tuition balances, library fees, or parking fines, among others. Typically resulting in registration and transcript holds, institutional debt limits students' ability to access their transcripts, causing "stranded credits." These institutional debts can hamstring students' ability to complete their credential, transfer to a new program, apply for scholarships, or show proof of their education to potential employers. This report introduces students with stranded credits who were eligible to return to college through the Ohio Compact and provides a glimpse into their circumstances outside of the classroom. The authors share the findings of their survey and describe the hurdles these learners face when once again pursuing their postsecondary degree. They then discuss the types of support vital to the persistence and retention of these students. Finally, the authors conclude by examining the importance of academic and non-academic supports for individuals with stranded credits in their educational journey.

The Texas Student Success Program Inventory (SSPI), available at https://www.highered.texas.gov/sspi, is an online database of information related to student success programs at public colleges and universities, commissioned by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB). Consistent with nearly every other state, prior to the creation of the SSPI, there was no organized source of information about student success programming in Texas. By creating a user-friendly tool for publicly sharing information, the SSPI is intended to push forward collaboration and innovation in student success programming and help the state accomplish the goals laid out in its 2022-2030 strategic plan, Building a Talent Strong Texas. Public undergraduate-serving institutions were invited to nominate their most impactful and innovative student success programs for inclusion within the inventory. Following this nomination process, Ithaka S+R asked program staff to provide detailed information about each program, including eligibility criteria, funding sources, and program outcomes. The SSPI currently houses information from 244 programs across 74 institutions in Texas. The review of the student success program data resulted in the following observations: (1) More programs concentrate on retention and persistence, academic performance, and student belonging and well-being than on objectives such as credential attainment, affordability, and post-completion goals; (2) The majority of programs in the inventory target low-income students, first-generation students, and students of color; (3) Programming centered on mentorship and academic goal setting and planning is the most prevalent in the inventory; (4) Programs in the inventory often depend on one funder, typically a funder within the institution; and (5) Roughly two-thirds of respondents indicated that data on student outcomes had already been collected or were being collected pertaining to their program.

As Mississippi prepares to support the statewide postsecondary attainment goal, understanding the returns to higher education is crucial to determining where to invest resources. Ithaka S+R has partnered with the Woodward Hines Education Foundation to provide Mississippi policymakers, advocates, and legislators with information they need to make strategic investments in postsecondary education that can increase attainment of high-value postsecondary credentials, especially amongst lower-income Mississippians, people of color, and residents in rural communities, ultimately strengthening the labor market by supplying an educated, trained workforce to meet current and future demands. To understand how postsecondary investments can best serve the needs of individuals and the state, this analysis seeks to answer three central questions: (1) what are the individual returns to higher education in the state; (2) what are the statewide economic returns to higher education; and (3) how can we plan for future investments in high-opportunity credentials? Based on the analysis, the report concludes with three key recommendations: (1) invest to provide earnings and employment opportunities to Mississippians; (2) invest in programs that meet social and labor needs; and (3) invest to close equity gaps in attainment and earnings.

The accreditation process and the federal role in shaping it are clearly of critical importance for ensuring all students have access to quality postsecondary options. And yet, due to the complexity of the relationship among the federal government, accreditors, and institutions, and the opacity of the accreditation process itself, there is little systematic evidence about the effects on higher education institutions and their students of this quality assurance regime and the periodic federal policy changes that reorient it. Ithaka S+R began a pilot study in 2021 to assess the feasibility of using publicly available data on the accreditation process and outcomes to evaluate the impact of federal oversight mechanisms on institutional and student outcomes. This report provides an overview of accreditation in the US and assesses the impact of changes in federal oversight. It focuses on changes to oversight that were part of the 2008 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA) of 1965 and specifically looks at the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) institutions given data availability. It also examines an oversight dashboard of accreditors launched in 2016 to understand if this form of public accountability may help improve student outcomes.

Every year a subset of postsecondary students goes hungry and lacks stable shelter. Recent research has helped raise national awareness of basic needs insecurity on college campuses across the US. States and institutions of higher education have, until recently, been approaching the problem of student food insecurity in separate, sometimes contradictory ways. While some institutions have developed wrap-around assistance programs for low-income students that have improved retention and completion rates, the students with the most needs often attend institutions with the fewest resources to support them. Developing state policies that support low-income students, particularly at community colleges, will not only increase the number of successful graduates but also improve students' work-readiness and income earning potential, leading to a stronger workforce for the state. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the primary federal program addressing food insecurity in the country, has incredibly complex rules for who is and is not eligible and postsecondary students are ineligible by default. This brief discusses how states are addressing this gap and provides policy recommendations for how government can better serve food insecure students.