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Browsing by Author "Kurzweil, Martin"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Enrolling More Veterans at High-Graduation-Rate Colleges and Universities
    Bond Hill, Catharine; Kurzweil, Martin; Davidson Pisacreta, Elizabeth; Schwartz, Emily (ITHAKA S+R, 2019-01-10)
    In the U.S military veterans are another underrepresented group at these well-resourced institutions. Only one in ten veterans using GI Bill benefits enrolls in institutions with graduation rates above 70 percent, while approximately one in three veterans using GI Bill benefits attends a for-profit institution. In this report, the authors outline the data on veteran college enrollment and success, discuss some of the barriers—for both institutions and student veterans—to increasing opportunity for veterans at high-graduation-rate colleges and universities, and suggest strategies for overcoming those barriers, including a review of some of the institutions and programs currently seeking to address these issues.
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    Expanding Opportunity for Lower-Income Students: Three Years of the American Talent Initiative
    Schwartz, Emily; Kurzweil, Martin; Le, Cindy; LaViolet, Tania; Perlstein, Elizabeth; Davidson Pisacreta, Elizabeth; Wyner, Joshua S. (American Talent Initiative, 2020-02-20)
    The American Talent Initiative (ATI) was formed in December 2016 to address a persistent issue—specifically, that the American colleges and universities with the greatest resources, and where students have the highest likelihood of graduating, have historically served far too few young people from low- and middle-income backgrounds. The American Talent Initiative has a goal to enroll an additional 50,000 low- and middle-income students at these institutions by the year 2025. The report explores strategies at the ATI member institutions making the most progress, particularly the importance of pursuing a comprehensive strategy with leadership and financial support, and discusses the challenges that institutions must overcome to achieve the 50,000-student goal.
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    Funding Socioeconomic Diversity at High Performing Colleges and Universities
    Kurzweil, Martin; Brown, Jessie (American Talent Initiative, 2017-02-15)
    At America’s 270 four-year public and private not-for-profit colleges and universities with graduation rates consistently above 70 percent, only 22 percent of students received Pell grants in academic year 2013-2014. By contrast, nearly 38 percent of students enrolled at all other four-year public and non-profit private schools receive Pell grants. This disparity is not driven by differences in student ability. With finite budgets and multiple priorities, institutions limit the funds they allocate to need based aid and other programs that support low- and moderate-income students. Yet even with those constraints, there are top-performing colleges and universities that have enhanced their commitment to serving these students and have found the financial means to do so. This paper profiles five of those institutions, focusing on their strategies for allocating funding to increase opportunities for low- and moderate-income students.
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    Institutional Transformation for Student Success: Lessons Learned from Ithaka S+R’s Case Studies
    Brown, Jessie; Kurzweil, Martin (ITHAKA S+R, 2016-10-20)
    Over the past decade, U.S. colleges and universities have faced increasing pressure from funders, policymakers, and advocates to improve degree completion rates and demonstrate their value to students. At the same time, researchers have produced substantial evidence about the efficacy of a number of structural and pedagogical changes institutions can make to help students succeed. These changes include remedial course redesign, proactive advising and coaching, active learning pedagogies incorporating technology, and streamlined pathways through institutions. Since January 2015, Ithaka S+R has published a series of case studies focused on exactly this question: how have institutions with demonstrated success in improving student outcomes managed the implementation of effective and innovative practices? This report elaborates the strategic essentials using illustrative examples from Ithaka S+R case studies.
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    Monitoring Advising Analytics to Promote Success (MAAPS): Evaluation Findings from the First Year of Implementation
    Alamuddin, Rayane; Rossman, Daniel; Kurzweil, Martin (ITHAKA S+R, 2018-04-04)
    In 2015, estimated bachelor’s degree attainment rates by age 24 were nearly five times greater for those from the highest family income quartile than for those from the lowest quartile (58 percent vs. 12 percent). Lower graduation rates of low-income students are not fully explained by lack of academic preparation, and a growing number of research studies attribute this achievement gap, at least in part, to low-income students’ lack of “institutional know-how”—their ability to navigate the complex bureaucracies that characterize modern universities, to choose appropriate majors, to register for the right courses at the right times, and to diagnose when they are off path and need to make corrections. The Monitoring Advising Analytics to Promote Success (MAAPS) project was designed to address this issue by enhancing and bringing to scale intensive, proactive coaching interventions that were shown to increase student retention by nine to fourteen percent. This report presents evaluation findings from the 2016-2017 academic year, the first year of implementation of the MAAPS study.