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The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) seeks to improve student outcomes by promoting a variety of student success efforts. These efforts include direct programs with well-defined target populations and program participants, offering specific student support services following a program model, and indirect programs aimed at providing faculty and staff members professional development or at improving campus facilities. MDRC led an implementation study of student success programs across the state that were funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Education Stabilization Fund Program Governor's Emergency Education Relief (GEER II) Fund. This fund was a COVID-19 recovery initiative, allowing recipients great flexibility in the use of grants, evident in the findings below. A total of nearly $12 million in grants was disbursed to 59 institutions of higher education in Texas. This report presents: (1) implementation research findings from the 59 institutions; (2) highlights research findings from previously conducted, rigorous evaluations of student support programs; and (3) offers recommendations for future research and practice.

Increasingly, obtaining a job that pays family-sustaining wages means getting a college degree or other postsecondary credential. However, according to the 2021 U.S. Census, only 31.5 percent of Texans ages 25 and older have a bachelor's degree or higher. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB)--the highest authority in the state regarding public higher education--has therefore set out a strategic plan to increase that percentage. Specifically, the plan calls for 60 percent of Texans ages 25 to 64 to have a postsecondary credential "of value" by 2030. THECB seeks to improve student outcomes by promoting a variety of student success interventions, particularly corequisite models. To meet this goal, THECB is giving grants to colleges across the state to fund student success programs: programs designed to help more students stay in college and earn degrees, particularly students of color, students from lower-income backgrounds, and students who need additional assistance to make satisfactory academic progress (that is, to earn enough credits to keep their federal financial aid). This brief summarizes some of the information THECB and its partners will use in that effort. It describes best practices and programs with proven effectiveness--the information that policymakers and practitioners need to consider in designing and promoting student success programs. The findings are based on MDRC's 20-year history conducting rigorous evaluations in postsecondary education as well as research and evaluations by other researchers. [This brief was funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Education Stabilization Fund Program Governor's Emergency Education Relief Fund, as part of the THECB Student Success Acceleration Program Implementation Grants.]