New Federal Strategy to Prepare Disadvantaged Students for College

Posted by on May 20, 2013

Evidence in exchange for federal billions

Time for Change: A New Federal Strategy to Prepare Disadvantaged Students for College

A new brief from the Brookings Institution reviews the four main federal programs geared toward increasing graduation of disadvantaged students from college. It finds that the TRIO programs (Upward Bound, Talent Search, Upward Bound Math-Science, and Student Support Services) at around $1 billion per year, show no major effects on college enrollment or completion. As a remedy, the authors propose dramatically changing the funding of these programs using an evidence-based approach. Programs should be consolidated, and organizations receiving grants must show, based on rigorous analysis, that they are helping disadvantaged students to enroll in and graduate from college. The U.S. Department of Education (ED) should also broaden eligibility for funding and allow any two- or four-year college, local education authority, nonprofit, or for-profit agency with a record of conducting education interventions to compete for grants. All applications should be considered on a competitive basis. ED must also make clear that evidence is crucial in determining awards: Rigorous evidence merits greater funds. ED must also have flexibility in distributing funds among programs and approaches. Finally, the department must be able to use 2 percent of its annual funds ($20 million) to plan coordinated research and demonstrations featuring large-scale, random-assignment studies that determine whether well-defined interventions or specific activities (such as mentoring, tutoring, etc.) actually increase college enrollment and completion.

http://futureofchildren.org/futureofchildren/publications/docs/23_01_PolicyBrief.pdf