From Access to Success: A Funders Guide to Ensuring More Americans Earn Postsecondary Degrees

College attainment rates are increasing in every industrialized and post-industrialized nation in the world--except America. Stagnating postsecondary graduation rates in the United States leave millions of Americans cut off from economic prosperity and impede our nation's ability to compete globally. Education philanthropy, which has long worked to improve college access through scholarship programs and other efforts that have increased the number of students enrolling at postsecondary institutions, must now shift its sights to college success by providing support to ensure postsecondary students graduate. In May 2010, Grantmakers for Education convened funders from across the country along with prominent researchers, higher education leaders and officials from the U.S. Department of Education to examine the most promising strategies for dramatically increasing the number of Americans earning a postsecondary degree. This brief summarizes key themes from that gathering to delineate current barriers to college completion; examine critical intervention levers at the student, institutional and policy levels that can drive increases in graduation rates; and identify the role grantmakers can play in promoting college success. [Additional funding was provided by TG.]