Stella Flores, assistant professor of public policy and higher education, will explore barriers to college completion as a co-investigator on a new $1.9 million Harvard Graduate School of Education study. The research is part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Postsecondary Success initiative to double the number of low-income students who earn postsecondary degrees by age 26 – an increase of approximately 250,000 graduates each year.
Flores will partner with the grant’s primary investigator Bridget Terry Long, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Michael Kurlaender, University of California Davis, and Eric Bettinger, Stanford University, on the project. The team will use state and university administrative datasets to conduct quantitative research on college enrollment and completion over the next four years. Additionally, they will investigate the role of community colleges in facilitating increased access and success in postsecondary attainment for underserved students.
There is no greater door to opportunity in this country than access to a quality education,” said Hilary Pennington, director of education, postsecondary success, at the Gates Foundation. “Today, a college credential is the equivalent of high school degree just a decade ago. That is why the foundation is making a long-term commitment to dramatically increase postsecondary completion rates, especially among low-income young people — a goal that is both ambitious and necessary.”
For more information about Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of education and human development visit http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu.