Description: As open-access institutions, community colleges provide avenues to educational attainment and economic mobility for historically marginalized groups, but persistence and completion rates community colleges are low in real and relative terms. This is attributable both to factors within the institutions themselves and to contextual factors facing community college students. COVID-19 and its resulting economic consequences disproportionately hurt the populations served by community colleges, causing both enrollment and persistence to decline sharply since the beginning of the pandemic.
In this context, Hartford Foundation for Public Giving sought to make short-duration grants to community colleges and affiliated local organizations to address and support community college student retention during the 2020/21 academic year.
To understand the impact of these grants during the pandemic, the Foundation contracted an evaluation team from Trinity College. The aim of this evaluation is to provide insights as the Foundation hones its approach to postsecondary grant-making.
Year: 2022
View the Report:
Supporting College Student Success during COVID-19: Evaluation Report