Higher Education

Evaluation of the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE)
The Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) provides “seed” grants to higher education institutions and organizations. Grants may support the development of distance learning applications, faculty training, retention programs, high school outreach programs, or cost-saving procedures. The U.S. Department of Education contracted with AIR to review this long-standing program. As part of this evaluation, AIR investigated the degree to which funded projects remain active after FIPSE funding is over. We also looked at the degree to which the funding acts as a “seed,” and leads to the implementation of similar projects in the higher education community.

TRIO
In the late 1960s, the three federal programs – Upward Bound, Talent Search and Student Support Services, collectively known as the TRIO Programs - were created to assist individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds to continue their education after high school. The number of programs under the TRIO umbrella has since grown to eight, offering a variety of services to individuals at different stages in the educational pipeline. Since 2002, AIR has been working with the TRIO staff in analyzing performance data on four of the TRIO programs:

Robert E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program, designed to assist college graduates from disadvantaged background (first generation and low income, or under-represented minorities) to apply for and complete their doctoral degrees;
Student Support Services (SSS) program, designed to assist students to obtain a two- or four-year degree;
Talent Search Program, designed to encourage high school students to complete their education and continue on in higher education;
Education Opportunity Center Program, designed to assist adults who want to enter or continue in higher education.

The national profiles for the McNair program and for the SSS program that AIR has developed examine, for the first time, program participants’ persistence and degree completion rates using data from multiple years. Participants in these two programs are compared to a national sample of students to provide a context for understanding the programs’ impacts.

Workforce-Contingent Financial Aid
A rapidly growing phenomenon, workforce-contingent financial aid (WCFA) programs assist individuals with their education expenses in exchange for work in either specified fields or specified locations. These increasingly popular financial aid programs appeal to legislators because they appear to be tackling two economic problems simultaneously – helping students and families meet the escalating prices of higher education and supplying workers in needed occupations or geographic areas. Funded by Lumina Foundation for Education, AIR conducted the first study ever to document the numbers and types of these programs at the state level. The resulting report, Workforce Contingent Financial Aid: How States Link Financial Aid to Employment, identified over 161 different WCFA programs in 43 states. The growth in these state-level programs, however, was not supported by any research that indicates that these programs are an efficient way either of providing financial aid or of attracting workers to shortage areas.

Model Institutions of Excellence
The National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration collaboratively support the Model Institutions for Excellence (MIE) program, targeting six minority-serving institutions of higher education to develop programs to increase the numbers of minorities earning baccalaureate degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. AIR is conducting a short-term impact study that will assess:

The extent to which the project have met program goals (improving minority student recruitment, retention, graduation, advancement in STEM careers and strengthening institutional infrastructure);
The models and the extent to which the models incorporate unique and shared elements; and
The extent to which the models embody principals identified as successful in research and practice.

Download AIR's report on the Model Institutions of Excellence program

The Quality Assurance Project
For over 17 years AIR has supplied training, technical assistance, and program evaluation services to the U.S. Department of Education, Federal Student Aid’s (FSA) Quality Assurance (QA) Program. The QA Program started in 1985 as a demonstration project with a handful of colleges and universities. These schools were interested in developing their own institutional criteria for verifying the information student’s supply on their financial aid applications. Participants in the QA Program still develop their own verification criteria, but now deliver approximately 20 percent of all federal award dollars. As the scope of the QA Program continues to expand, AIR works keep program requirements in sync with larger FSA initiatives, train financial aid administrators on how to analyze their own institution’s data, and produce evaluation reports that address the effectiveness of institutional verification methodologies at the program level.

The “tools for schools” AIR develops with FSA now serve the needs of all Title IV colleges and universities, including schools that do not participate in the QA Program. The two primary tools are the ISIR Analysis Tool and the FSA Assessments. The ISIR Analysis Tool allows schools to identify the types of students most likely to experience of change in application information that results in a change to aid eligibility. The FSA assessments are a web-based product that allows schools to self-monitor their compliance with specific regulations. Each assessment contains hyper links to the relevant sections of legislation or departmental policy announcements and activity modules for schools to work through in order to test whether or not their school is currently following all the applicable rules.

Evaluation of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators Online Training Course
This project evaluated the effectiveness of an online training series developed by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators . Following an experimental design approach, scores from common test items between financial aid staff members who took the on-line training module and those who attended conventional week-long training workshop were compared to determine the substantive knowledge and cost benefits of the on-line training series. Individuals who received web training appeared to learn more than participants receiving more traditional training.

A Review of Financial Aid Policies in Maryland
The Maryland Higher Education Commission funded AIR to review the state’s 24 financial aid programs and to make recommendations for improvement. To arrive at recommendations, AIR reviewed previous research, including similar studies done for other states; conducted an informal survey of and a focus group with financial aid directors in Maryland colleges and universities; informally surveyed high school guidance counselors; interviewed state legislators; interviewed commissioners on the Maryland Higher Education Commission; analyzed data on financial aid recipients in Maryland; extensively reviewed the current financial aid programs in Maryland; and reviewed financial aid programs in other states, including discussions with officials in other states.

Based on these activities AIR arrived at a number of recommendations for improving Maryland’s state financial aid programs.

Consolidating and simplifying the more than 20 different programs currently providing financial assistance to students
Reviewing financial aid programs that require a service commitment in designated workforce shortage areas on a biennial basis to update the list of occupations covered
Refraining from creating new financial aid programs
Increasing the funding for state financial aid programs
Modernizing the information technology that supports the administration of financial aid in Maryland
Decentralizing the administration of need-based financial aid
Modifying the Guaranteed Access Scholarship Program to include an outreach effort allowing students to pre-qualify for aid in the 9 th or 10 th grade
Increasing the level of funding available to graduate and professional students
Making funds available for HBCU graduates to pursue graduate and professional degrees in Maryland universities and developing an outreach effort that ensures the success of students who receive the funds

These recommendations were delivered in a final written report and in testimony before Maryland’s state legislature. This study led to legislative activity geared at simplifying eligibility requirements for existing scholarships – making them more uniform across programs – and the creation of new state task force on college readiness.

Evaluation of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Early College High School Initiative
As part of their efforts to impact the educational experience for thousands of students, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has funded the creation of Early College High Schools (ECHSs) across the country. ECHSs are charged with ensuring that their students receive not only a high school diploma, but two-years of college credit. AIR, with funds from the foundation, is evaluating the success of this reform initiative. We are looking at both the development of ECHSs and their outcomes concerning student high school and postsecondary achievement.

Title II Partnership Program
The Title II Partnership grant program has these goals

Implementing reforms to hold teacher training programs accountable
Providing sustained and quality pre service field experiences
Providing increased opportunities for enhanced professional development

Since 2000, AIR (and its subcontractor, SRI International) has been conducting a multi-year evaluation of the program through project director, faculty and school district representative surveys, case study visits to five grantees, a one-time survey of elementary school principals (partners in the grantees) and analyses of annual performance reports and institutional accountability reports. The key evaluation topics include:

Characteristics of high-quality pre service teacher preparation and changes to the content and structure of the pre service teacher preparation program over the grant period
Contributions of partnership grants to the roles schools and school districts play in pre-service teacher preparation
The association between collaborative activities among partner institutions of higher education (IHEs) and schools and student achievement outcomes
Organizational changes and relationships among partners within a grant
Efforts to institutionalize partnerships

The evaluation is exploring progress made by the 25 Partnerships funded in 1999 towards these goals. The Title II Partnership Program is a component of the HEA Reauthorization, 1998, and is very focused on the reform of teacher preparation, particularly by deepening the content preparation of teachers and collaborating with schools and school districts in preparation of new teachers and delivering professional development for in service teachers.

AIR prepared an interim report that the U.S. Department of Education released in March 2004.

Transition to Teaching Evaluation
As one response to the call for highly qualified teachers, the U.S. Department of Education supports the Transition to Teaching (TTT) program, as described in Chapter B of the No Child Left Behind Act (P.L. 107.110). Its purposes are “(a) to recruit and retain highly qualified mid-career professionals (including highly qualified paraprofessionals), and recent graduates of an institution of higher education, as teachers in high-need schools, including recruiting teachers through alternative routes to certification; and (b) to encourage the development and expansion of alternative routes to certification under State-approved programs that enable individuals to be eligible for teacher certification within a reduced period of time, relying on the experience, expertise, and academic qualifications of an individual, or other factors in lieu of traditional course work in the field of education.” Specifically, the TTT program addresses the broad policy issues of bringing flexibility into the teacher preparation system, increasing the pool of qualified candidates for full certification to serve high need schools, and improving the retention rate of new teachers.

The U.S. Department of Education is funding a number of models of alternate routes to certification for new teachers as part of its Transition to Teaching Grant Program. These models target different eligible populations (mid career changers, paraprofessionals, and recent college graduates). The models range from local to regional in scope and are administered by universities, school districts, and states. Ninety-four grantees from the 2002 cohort of Transition to Teaching Grant Program are the subject of a three-year evaluation, being conducted by AIR and its subcontractor, The McKenzie Group.

Congress is the designated recipient of the report at the end of three years, which is called the Interim Report because grantees will continue to operate after the data have been collected and analyzed from 2004-2006. AIR developed the Annual Performance Report for the grant program that will be used for the first time in fall 2004. AIR will also conduct a one-time survey of a sample of TTT grantee participants. Eight case studies will be conducted in the fall of 2004 as well.