Partnerships to Achieve Student Success National CohortsThird Sector is Supporting States to Direct Public Dollars Toward Evidence-Based Support Services that Address Barriers to Postsecondary Education
The Opportunity
Everyone, no matter their age, race, zip code, or previous educational background deserves to get the education and the career they want. And yet millions of Americans face significant barriers to enrolling, persisting, and completing postsecondary education and obtaining a credential – even as more and more of the best paying jobs require some kind of postsecondary 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.
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.
By the end of each cohort, states co-created implementation plans with Third Sector that outlined the data-informed challenge they are seeking to address, the specific subpopulation of students most impacted, root causes of the challenge and corresponding population needs, a solution co-designed with stakeholders, and clear next steps for how they might leverage policies, support services, data, and funding to implement the solution.
The Cohorts
2019
In 2019, Third Sector formed the first 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. Third Sector worked with Arizona (Arizona State University), Colorado (Colorado Department of Higher Education), Connecticut (Connecticut State Colleges & Universities), and Ohio (Ohio Department of Higher Education) to innovate new outcomes-based approaches to identifying and supporting various groups of students with historically low completion rates in getting to and through college. As a result of the cohort, the Colorado Department of Higher Education’s Colorado Opportunity Scholarship Initiative launched the Finish What You Started Adams County pilot, which provides social, financial, and career supports to help adult learners 25 and older with some college, no degree – particularly those identifying as Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino/a, and Native American – return to higher education and complete a degree or certificate. Third Sector continues to work with the Ohio Department of Higher Education, with support from the Kresge and ECMC Foundations, to pilot similar investments in wraparound student supports for Ohio National Guard members.
Third Sector continued to work with the Ohio Department of Higher Education, with support from the Kresge and ECMC Foundations, to pilot investments in coaching services provided by InsideTrack for first-year Ohio National Guard scholarship recipients in Cuyahoga County, using a Pay for Success (PFS) or social impact bond (SIB) financing model. The program, “Coach to Complete,” will serve up to 510 eligible Ohio guardsmen from Northeast Ohio, in partnership with the Cuyahoga County Department of Health and Human Services.
Third Sector continued to work with the Colorado Opportunity Scholarship Initiative (COSI) through the pandemic and successfully launched the Finish What You Started pilot in Adams County, Colorado, which provides social, financial, and career supports to adults with some college, no degree – particularly those identifying as Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino/a, and Native American – to return to higher education and complete a degree or certificate using an innovative, equity-centered outcomes-based contract with service provider One Million Degrees. Finish What You Started is among the first outcomes-based contracts for support services in the field of higher education nationwide. With the passage of H.B. 21-1330, signed by Governor Polis on June 29, 2021, COSI received $48 million of American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding to expand Finish What You Started statewide, allocating funding to all Colorado public institutions of higher education to provide direct and indirect support to students and expanding the population eligible to participate.
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2022
In the second PASS cohort, launched in 2022 with support from the ECMC Foundation, Third Sector partnered with the Alabama (Alabama Commission on Higher Education), Michigan (Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO) Office of Sixty by 30), and Rhode Island (Rhode Island Office of the Postsecondary Commissioner) – all of whom were interested in better-serving adults with some college, no degree. Through the 2022 PASS Cohort, partners developed a deep understanding of adults 25 and older with some college experience, but no degree in their state and designing customized solutions that improve their ability to more effectively serve all returning adults, no matter what led to breaks in their education, and eliminate equity gaps between different groups of adults. Recognizing that adults have unique needs and challenges that prevent them from enrolling in and completing college, we support our PASS Cohort partners in taking a population-first approach, designing strategies that enable them to develop a deeper understanding of lived experiences for individuals in this population as well as examine root and systemic causes of lower degree attainment. Following the second PASS Cohort, Third Sector continued to support Alabama (Alabama Commission on Higher Education) on the implementation of their action plan.
Third Sector continued to work with Alabama to advance their state’s commitment to supporting adult learners. ACHE, Alabama Possible, and the Governor's Office of Education and Workforce Transformation launched (Re)Engage Alabama, an adult attainment-focused learning community, in partnership with Third Sector. Between August 2022 and August 2023, ACHE and Alabama Possible hosted five convenings, co-facilitated by Third Sector and with support from Education Strategy Group (ESG), to elevate best practices from the field, share statewide and institutional adult student outcomes data, and enable cross-institution relationship building and problem-solving. This effort also played a role in passing S.B. 175 establishing the ReEngage Alabama Grant Program, $4.5M in scholarships for returning adult students pursuing in-demand credentials.
2024
In May 2024, Third Sector launched the Partnerships to Achieve Student Success (PASS) 3 cohort to create cross-sector partnerships with community-based organizations, workforce organizations, state systems of higher education, and other key stakeholders to explore ways states can 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.
Third Sector will leverage its expertise in outcomes-based approaches, continuous improvement, stakeholder engagement, and partnership development to support coordinated state-level strategy-building pathways that engage adult learners and connect them to better jobs. The state partners in this cohort are Indiana and Mississippi. Learn more here.
