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Browsing by Author "Walizer, Lauren"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Barriers to Success: High Unmet Financial Need Continues to Endanger Higher Education Opportunities for Low Income Students
    Walizer, Lauren (Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), 2015-06-01)
    For nearly three in four people, paying for a postsecondary education seems out of reach. The cost of college has far outpaced the growth in incomes for more than a decade. Low-income students are disproportionately affected by these skyrocketing costs because they have fewer resources to fall back on. When student financial aid cannot meet educational expenses, low-income students are more likely to borrow or work more, cut their course load, or even drop out. CLASP’s 2013 “Mind the Gap” paper shined a spotlight on the problem of unmet need among community college students, documenting that virtually all of the neediest independent community college students (98 percent or more) had unmet need. This report points out some of the barriers to success in the higher education for low-income students.
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    Developing State Policy that Supports Low-income, Working Students
    Duke-Benfield, Amy E.; Garcia, Rosa M.; Walizer, Lauren; Welton, Carrie (CLASP, 2018-09-01)
    Students and state policymakers clearly understand how important postsecondary education is to financial wellbeing and state economic productivity. Those with associate or bachelor’s degrees earn 31 percent and 77 percent more, respectively, than people with a high school diploma. And college graduates are less likely to be unemployed. This report lays out an action framework that the higher education leaders, nonprofit advocates, state policymakers, and postsecondary students we gathered during an April 2018 roundtable agree are needed to support the educational success of low-income working students, particularly students of color. It also examines how states must expand their policies beyond the traditional postsecondary landscape to acknowledge the complexity of these students’ lives.
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    No Educational Experience Should Be an Island: How Low-Income Students’ Access to and Persistence in Postsecondary Education is Restricted in the Very Programs they Need the Most
    Walizer, Lauren (Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), 2016-05-01)
    For low-income students, particularly those who are lower-skilled and/or did not enroll in postsecondary education immediately after high school, completing a community-college based workforce development program offers a crucial opportunity to put their new skills to work and find employment in their regional labor market. The best of these programs are developed in conjunction with local employers, designed to address skills and employment gaps in the local area, and offer high-quality training that leads to careers. In this context, the author argues that not-for-credit or noncredit programs present advantages: they can offer training of shorter duration and can connect very low-income individuals with employment faster; they are often created based on specific employer needs or input, ensuring that students are learning skills applicable to jobs in their local area; and institutions can more rapidly and easily get them started, since they are usually not subject to time-consuming curriculum approval processes.