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Current Initiatives

The Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) manages a variety of initiatives to inform key decision makers who shape legislation and support economic and social development. These initiatives incorporate a variety of resources and tools, such as research reports, convenings, and online media, to educate and drive national, state, local, and institutional efforts in support of education reform for underrepresented students. 

To achieve stronger educational outcomes for underserved students, we align IHEP’s initiatives with our four policy priorities: Access & Success, Affordability & Finance, Accountability & Transparency, and Critical Communities & Institutions.

Initiative

Redefining Access for the 21st-Century Student

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.

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Initiative

Looking Back to Move Forward: A History of Federal Student Aid

This documentary series provides insight into the programs’ origins, milestones, and current issues as we ponder future direction and navigate foreseeable roadblocks to new policy innovation.

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Community Partnership for Attainment

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.

Postsecondary Data Collaborative (PostsecData)

Through the PostsecData Collaborative, IHEP is leading efforts to improve postsecondary education data quality and use. For example, in May 2016, IHEP collaborated with partners to publish 11 policy papers on Envisioning the National Postsecondary Infrastructure in the 21st Century – the largest effort to date aimed at improving national postsecondary data systems. Explore the policy recommendations here.

Reimagining Aid Design and Delivery

The RADD project identifies and develops innovative postsecondary financial aid solutions that ensure increased access and success for low-income students.

Project Win-Win

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 sought to find and bring them back to college to complete the degree. To date, more than 4,500 students have received degrees retroactively, as a result of this effort.

Pathways to College Network

IHEP directs and is a core member of the Pathways to College Network (PCN), an alliance of national partners working collaboratively to improve college access and success for underserved students.

College Not Prison

The Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) is leading #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. Together with other advocates and researchers in the field, we are working to let policymakers at all levels know they must fix broken systems that put corrections spending before education. To join us and learn more, visit the campaign's website.