Strategic Planning

Highlights promising practices from a dozen schools across the country that are doing the hard work of increasing college completion rates for students on their campuses. The report contains links to resources and stories written by institutions themselves and will serve as an additional resource for schools as they seek to promote student degree completion.

Examines background and educational characteristics, plans for college, postsecondary enrollment, and postsecondary completion patterns of first-generation college students and their peers whose parents have college degrees. The brief also explores how postsecondary plans, attendance, and completion varies between these two groups of students. In addition, the brief presents the reasons why some 2002 high school sophomores who were postsecondary enrollees did not obtain a credential by 2012.

Proposes building on the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) Program to structure an institutional grant program that better supports the availability of high-quality child care for parents pursuing postsecondary credentials (student-parents). Compared with the existing federal program, the proposed program would be larger and better targeted to address the substantial needs of low income student-parents. The program would encourage enrollment practices and educational investments that benefit the individual as well as the overall economy.

Details what can be done to keep first-year students safe during their first few weeks on campus. Suggests reducing behavioral tendencies that include high-risk alcohol consumption, drug use, hazing, and other behaviors contrary to successful assimilation into college life. 

Provides an online knowledge sharing portal, designed for minority serving community colleges and affiliates, for sharing documents and engaging in discussion groups around how to support student success by enhancing connections to practitioners of adult basic education, developmental education, English Language Learners, and career and technical education. 

Encompasses a broad range of material introducing and endorsing trauma-sensitive practice with an emphasis on sexual assault trauma. It is designed specifically for health center staff who serve as primary care providers to students in higher education. These tools are designed to supplement higher education efforts to develop campus-wide plans addressing sexual assault at their institutions. 

Describes the planning and evaluation process for organizing campus-based programs and policies that address alcohol and other drug abuse and violence and provides an overview of the elements and purposes of sound planning, consistent with the U.S. Department of Education's principles of effectiveness for prevention programs.

Discusses how African Americans from underserved backgrounds are more likely than other racial and ethnic groups, including Asians, Hispanics, and Whites, to be exposed to traumatic events. There is little research that examines how traumatic events have an impact on African-American students attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU).