This Internal Stakeholder Engagement toolkit is designed to support cadres’ and colleges’ efforts to more effectively engage key internal stakeholders (faculty, staff, and administration) during the final quarter of the Completion by Design (CBD) planning year. While the short- term goal of this toolkit is to help the managing partner directors, senior partners, cadre team leads, co-leads, and trained facilitators engage internal stakeholders to inform the design of the cadres’ model pathway plans, it is important that cadres also take a broader view of this work and plan accordingly. 

Without sufficient financial aid, many community college students cannot begin their postsecondary education, much less sustain it to complete a certificate or degree. This report describes how at a particular meeting in early 2012, postsecondary reform leaders, policymakers, and financial aid experts collaborated to understand how existing federal financial aid policies act as a barrier to institutional and statewide innovation for low-income students. Using case studies, the report describes the reform efforts of two states—Virginia and Washington—to describe obstacles encountered with federal policy and how these states developed workarounds and unique solutions to ensuring that low-income students have funds to complete their education. The author outlines next steps for states, as identified by those participants who are leading the conversation in financial aid policy reform. 

There is a need for understanding if promising practices that appear to work for the general student population are effective in increasing access and success in postsecondary education for low-income and underrepresented students. This report addresses accelerated learning options and how they might improve rates of college enrollment, persistence, and graduation for underserved students. However, there is a need to improve data collection and data reporting systems across states to understand how underserved students would benefit from accelerated learning programs. Among the recommendations in this report is a call for policymakers, researchers, practitioners, and external funding groups to improve collaboration and evidence-based research to begin efforts to improve student outcomes through accelerated learning options.