Critical Communities & Institutions Initiatives

Thirty institutions were provided capacity-building grants to implement strategic practices to help first-generation students of color achieve academic success.

In 2017, the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) led #CollegeNotPrison, a social media and public awareness campaign to educate policymakers, campus leaders, and the public about the financial aid barriers justice-involved youth face when pursuing higher education.

Sixty-one participating colleges (in nine states) joined forces to locate qualified students who never received an associate's degree and to award those degrees retroactively. This effort also identified former students who were no more than nine to 12 credits short of an associate’s degree and...

IHEP regularly contributed to international projects to track higher education ranking systems, performance, and financing.

This IHEP initiative reinvigorates the dialogue on college access in the U.S. to develop a roadmap for aligning research, policy, and practice. Be sure to view the initiative's feature documentary film and accompanying report.

Community Partnership for Attainment is a community mobilization initiative designed to dramatically increase the number of local residents with postsecondary credentials. 

Learn more and view IHEP’s tactical guidebooks here.

BEAMS fostered data-driven projects to facilitate minority students’ participation and success in higher education.

IHEP Global Policy Fellows shared ideas, tools, and techniques to develop higher education policy models in their own countries.

The Lumina MSI-Models of Success program worked with more than 25 minority-serving institutions to improve and document increased post-secondary attainment.

IHEP Summer Academies gathered college and university teams to create and refine comprehensive action plans for institutional change.