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25 Years of Equity

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  • About IHEP
    • Message from our President
    • History
    • What We Do
      • Current Initiatives
        • Postsecondary Data Collaborative
        • Degrees When Due
        • Assessing The Impact of Prison-Based Postsecondary Education Programs
      • Previous Initiatives
        • Global Initiatives
          • Global Policy Fellows Program
        • IHEP Champions of Access and Success
        • College Not Prison
        • Minority-Serving Institutions-Models of Success Program
        • Film Series: Federal Student Aid History
        • Summer Academy
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        • Redefining Access for the 21st-Century Student
        • Reimagining Aid Design and Delivery
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Home / About IHEP / What We Do / Previous Initiatives

Project Win-Win

Between 2009 and 2013, 61 colleges in nine states (Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Virginia, and Wisconsin) joined together for Project Win-Win. Their mission: locate former students, no longer enrolled anywhere and never awarded a degree, whose records qualified them for associate’s degrees, and 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.

As of August 2013, 60 of the 61 Project Win-Win participants had identified nearly 130,000 students who met the initial criteria, completing degree audits for the nearly 42,000 students remaining after removing those who reenrolled or earned degrees elsewhere. More than 6,700 students emerged eligible for the retroactive award of the associate’s degree, and more than 4,500 have received degrees to date. Of more than 20,000 students identified with fewer than 12 credits to completion, almost 1,700 have returned to college and another 400 have signaled their intent to return.  For more information about the project, participating institutions, and the results, see Project Win-Win at the Finish Line.

Publications

  • Searching for Our Lost Associate’s Degrees: Project Win-Win at the Finish Line
  • Project Win-Win at the Finish Line
  • Crossing the Finish Line: A National Effort to Address Near Completion

News

  • IHEP's "Project Win-Win" Successfully Uses Data Mining to Award Degrees Retroactively to Formerly Enrolled Students (Oct 30, 2013)
  • Institute for Higher Education Policy Calls on Higher Education Leaders and Lawmakers to Give Greater Attention and Support to “Near-Completer” Students (Nov 3, 2011)
  • Institute for Higher Education Policy Convenes Diverse Stakeholders to Identify Policies and Practices to Help “Near-Completer” College Students (Sep 13, 2011)
  • When Students Transfer, Credits May Not Follow (Aug 20, 2014)
  • Drop-out or Potential Graduate? (Aug 4, 2014)
  • Clearinghouse Report Identifies 31 Million Who Attended College but Didn't Complete (Jul 29, 2014)
  • Rethinking College Costs: 3 Radical Plans (Apr 9, 2014)
  • IHEP's Project Win-Win highlighted in the March 2014 issue of O Magazine (Mar 1, 2014)
  • Community Colleges’ Most Challenging Task: Increase Completion Rates (Jan 6, 2014)

Events

  • 2013 Institutional Policy Forum: Getting Across the Finish Line with Project Win-Win (Jul 30, 2013)
  • 2011 National Summit on Near Completion (Sep 13, 2011)

Policy Priorities

  • Access & Success
  • Accountability & Transparency
  • Critical Communities & Institutions

Funding Partners

Kresge Foundation
Lumina Foundation

Project Team

  • Michelle Asha Cooper, Ph.D. President
  • Lacey H. Leegwater, M.Ed. Vice President of Planning and Operations

Research

  • Message from our President
  • History
  • What We Do
    • Current Initiatives
    • Previous Initiatives
      • Global Initiatives
      • IHEP Champions of Access and Success
      • College Not Prison
      • Minority-Serving Institutions-Models of Success Program
      • Film Series: Federal Student Aid History
      • Summer Academy
      • Community Partnership for Attainment
      • Symposium on Financial Literacy and College Success at Minority-Serving Institutions
      • Walmart Minority Student Success Initiative
      • BEAMS
      • Project Win-Win
      • Redefining Access for the 21st-Century Student
      • Reimagining Aid Design and Delivery
      • Pathways to College Network
  • Who We Are
  • Partners
  • Working at IHEP

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© Institute for Higher Education Policy
1993-2014.
1825 K Street, N.W., Suite 720 
Washington, DC 20006
(202) 861-8223 TELEPHONE
(202) 861-9307 FAX
institute@ihep.org
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