Spotlight on Creating Postsecondary Success for All Learners

September 10, 2024

Improving postsecondary education and job training can help people move up economically and can lead to healthier communities. Schools, colleges, and industry leaders can work together to create systems that close equity gaps.

This Spotlight shares resources to help students succeed in postsecondary education, find lasting and family-wage paying jobs, and build strong communities.

Learning From Postsecondary Multilingual Learners

WestEd and Student-Ready Strategies recently released a report highlighting how institutions and systems can better support Multilingual Learners of English (MLE) as they pursue postsecondary pathways.

The report offers recommendations to more effectively and equitably serve these students, an often overlooked and underserved population in higher education.

Educators can learn how to support MLE students by listening directly to them.

In this blog, Dr. Abbey Ivey and Amy Getz describe what they gleaned from interviews with students in English as a Second Language (ESL) programs in Texas and California.

The insights reflect MLEs’ critical perspectives and shed light on ways institutions can better meet the needs of MLE students.

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Creating Culturally Responsive Math Pathways Together With Tribal Colleges and Universities

Carnegie Math Pathways and several tribal colleges and universities (TCU) formed a professional network in 2017 with the shared goal of increasing student outcomes and college completion through culturally aligned mathematics learning and teaching that centers Native students and communities.

Today, with over 3,500 TCU students served, they’ve made significant progress toward this goal. The network of faculty has adapted the Pathways approach in meaningful ways to reflect and uplift their tribal communities and has seen student retention and outcomes soar.

TCU student success rates in Pathways courses have averaged 71 percent, compared to 43 percent in the previous TCU developmental math programs or sequences, and students are more engaged and better connected with their peers and show enhanced confidence in their abilities as math learners.

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Helping Adult Learners in Rural Areas Achieve Better Economic Outcomes

For many, economic mobility, or the concept of increasing one’s economic status over time, goes hand in hand with the “American Dream”—the idea that anyone, no matter their background, wealth, race, or geographical location, can achieve their goals and improve their economic status by working hard and educating themselves.

But to achieve those dreams, people in all communities need to be connected to equitable and accessible on-ramps to economic mobility.

Postsecondary education programs, including community colleges, career and technical education, apprenticeships, on-the-job training, and 4-year universities and beyond, are crucial levers for achieving economic mobility.

This is especially the case for rural communities, which face unique opportunities and challenges in accessing the education and training that results in achieving economic mobility.

Research shows that rural students graduate from high school at a higher rate (90%) than students from cities (82%) or suburbs (89%).

But rural communities often have limited access to education and employment opportunities, and they have limited resources for essentials like adequate housing or child care—all possible contributors to the fact that only about 55 percent of rural students directly enroll in college.