Project Overview
Since 2019, Third Sector has supported three cohorts of the Partnerships to Achieve Student Success (PASS), a group of state systems of higher education that aims to improve student outcomes to and through postsecondary education. The current PASS 3 cohort focuses on how states and intermediary non-profit and community-based organizations can develop cross-sector partnerships to build coordinated state-level strategy-building pathways to engage adult learners and connect them to better jobs.
Everyone, no matter their age, race, zip code, or previous educational background, deserves to get the education and career they want. Yet millions of Americans face significant barriers to enrolling in, persisting in, and completing post-secondary education and obtaining a credential—even as more and more of the best-paying jobs require some kind of post-secondary education.
At the same time, there are a variety of wraparound student support services and promising practices offered by providers across the country that have demonstrated success in improving outcomes for students who face more barriers to college than others by meeting their specific needs and removing those barriers. While the evidence for these services, programs, and policies continues to grow, many states are not investing at the level necessary to achieve impact.
The Partnerships to Achieve Student Success (PASS) cohort envisions a future in which public systems of higher education strategically invest in the resources, evidence-informed wraparound support services, and policies necessary to support college-seeking students who face the most significant barriers to enrollment, persistence, and graduation.
In 2019, Third Sector formed the Partnerships to Achieve Student Success (PASS) cohort, with support from the Kresge Foundation, to create partnerships with state systems of higher education across the country to engage in innovative, outcomes-driven approaches to supporting students with historically low enrollment, persistence, and completion rates.
In the first and second cohorts, Third Sector provided the cohorts with six months of technical assistance, cross-cohort peer learning, and field-building to:
- Identify disparities in outcomes using disaggregated data sets;
- Refine the challenge they are seeking to address by learning more about the population most impacted by barriers to higher education in their states and critically examine root causes of the challenge; and
- Engage stakeholders in the co-design of solution(s) to address the challenge.
The third and current PASS cohort launched in May 2024 and focuses on how states and intermediary non-profit and community-based organizations can develop cross-sector partnerships to build a coordinated state-level strategy building pathways to engage adult learners and connect them to better jobs. The state partners in this cohort are Indiana and Mississippi.
Third Sector will leverage its expertise in outcomes-based approaches, continuous improvement, stakeholder engagement, and partnership development to help each team explore partnerships to apply innovative, outcomes-driven approaches to scale or strengthen initiatives that re-engage adult learners in earning a credential and/or connecting them to better jobs.
- Create a data-driven, customized strategy for better supporting your adult learner population through program shifts that align with organizational and state priorities;
- Develop cross-sector partnerships with other community-based and intermediary organizations focused on building successful pathways between post-secondary education and workforce;
- Develop an explicit strategy to better connect learners with some college but no degree to credentials that improve their economic mobility;
- Elevate recommendations for policy or practice change at the state level that can be championed and sustained by the team beyond the cohort.
By the end of this year, states will have developed an implementation plan to elevate policy or practice change that will better support its state's adult learners. Members will also have clear next steps on promising practices that can be implemented, methods to identify barriers that might make implementing new practices challenging, and practices for connecting and collaborating across teams.
Three states from the previous cohorts chose to continue working with Third Sector to implement their action plans - Colorado and Ohio from the 2019 cohort and Alabama from the 2022 cohort. Learn more here.
Post Secondary Opportunity
| Project Name | Scope | Location | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supporting Colorado to Implement New Program Providing Wraparound Support to Adult Learners | State | CO | Closed |
| As an outgrowth of its work with four states during the first PASS cohort, Third Sector supported the Colorado Opportunity Scholarship Initiative (COSI) by implementing the Postsecondary Grant Redesign, which revamps its financial and wraparound support grants into one joint program aimed at ensuring all students are equipped to succeed in their post-secondary education. Setting up a joint program was a key recommendation coming out of the original PASS cohort work. | |||
| Supporting Cross-Sector Partnerships to Design Innovative Job Training and Education Programs (LiLAs) | State | AR, CA, IL, MA, MI | Active |
| Since 2024, Third Sector has been supporting cross-sector partnerships across 7 states to design, develop, and implement Lifelong Learning Account (LiLA) pilots. These pilot programs will provide working people and jobseekers in their states with access to job training and ongoing educational opportunities to grow or build new careers. | |||
