Pilot Programs Links Needy Students To Public Benefits

This entry was posted on 09.17.13, in Adult Learning, Community College, Postsecondary, Sociology, Students and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

Can a couple of hundred dollars make the difference between a student earning a college degree or not? Can access to social services like food stamps or subsidized day care or a reduced-cost bus pass be the difference between student success and failure?

A pilot program involving seven community colleges is trying to find out.

Benefits Access for College Completion (BACC) is a three-year, $4.84 million initiative funded by the Ford Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, Lumina Foundation, and the Open Society Foundations, and managed by the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) and the American Association of Community Colleges.

The initiative aims to help low-income students connect to coordinated income supports such as child care subsidies and food assistance. Data from the initiative will be evaluated to see if low-income students who receive such supports stay in school longer and complete their studies more quickly. <Read more.>

Via Paul Bradley, Community College Week.