1. Delivering a Promise: American Innovations for Promoting College Access and Success
TRAVIS REINDL, JOBS FOR THE FUTURE (USA)
FORUM ON HIGHER EDUCATION AND SOCIAL INCLUSION
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
16 JULY 2008

2. Context Finance Programming
Institutional: public subsidies based primarily on enrollment (input), as opposed to persistence and completion (throughput)
Student: evolution of grant aid (need  merit  need/merit); rise of loans
Programming
Student success focus driven by:
Changing demographics
K-12 reform movement (pipeline ruptures)
Rise of graduation rate as an accountability metric
Programs developed as add-ons, funded by shifting combination of primarily federal and philanthropic investments

3. Forces for Change: Demographic

4. Forces for Change: Political
US Rankings on the World Stage:
1st: spending per student (more than 2x OECD average)
19th: college completion (tied for last in OECD)
10th: percentage of year olds with AA+

5. New Approaches Finance Programming
Institutional: movement toward persistence and completion incentives in public subsidy
Indiana
Ohio
Tennessee
Texas
Student: emergence of “covenant” programs targeting low-income secondary students
Indiana 21st Century Scholars
Oklahoma’s Promise
Programming
Early College High Schools (five-year program for acquiring high school diploma, postsecondary credits up to AA)
Expansion of dual high school-college enrollment programs (to low SES schools and students)
Redesign of “gatekeeper” courses (National Center for Academic Transformation)

6. Insights The power of unintended consequences
Need to develop policies that do not provide implicit incentives for recruiting and retaining only the best and brightest
The need to confront conventional wisdom
At-risk students often need challenge over remediation, student success programs can be cost-effective, larger classes do not have to mean higher levels of attrition
The importance of scalability and sustainability
Doing things differently has not really been the problem; challenge has been doing things differently at scale and through political and fiscal cycles