This grant will enable the Education Trust to influence national policy debates on college student debt and advocate for changes to practices that exacerbate the disproportionate impact the student loan crisis has on Black borrowers. Since 2020, Ed Trust has collected nearly 1,300 survey responses and conducted over 100 interviews with Black borrowers representing a range of higher education experiences. This data set shows the negative effects of student loan policies, including the pitfalls of income-driven repayment plans, the impacts of the pandemic, and the potential benefits of federal loan relief and cancellation proposals. View Website

This grant will enable College Promise, a national bipartisan organization launched by President Obama in 2015, to both monitor and support cities and states as they implement free community college programs, and to manage Kresge’s CoPro2.0 initiative. This grant, which includes additional operating support, will help College Promise facilitate CoPro2.0 learning exchanges, larger convenings, and produce reports and briefs to help policymakers implement equitable and financially  sustainable tuition-free community college programs nationwide. View Website

This grant will enable Grantmakers for Education (GFE) to plan and host its annual conference with both virtual and in-person components and reaffirm its commitment to supporting learners. Funding will support technology, staff time, speakers, and costs associated with organizing a hybrid convening for the expected 1,000 participants. With the theme “Celebrating 25 Years: A Vision for the Future of Learning and Justice,” the purpose of this year’s conference is to unite funders and experts to collectively explore a vision for the future of learning and justice, as well as to celebrate the quarter-century milestone. The mutual support and knowledge-building GFE provides to its members will be more important than ever to ensure momentum to advance racial justice in philanthropy. View Website

To subsidize school district access to the Degrees of Change digital app, GuidEd Insight, to enable analysis, reporting, and visualization of student enrollment data. View Website

This grant will enable the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF), in partnership with Delaware State University (a public HBCU) and other vendors, to facilitate the next phase of an online degree completion pilot for HBCU near completers. P Although slightly delayed due to the pandemic, the partnership is stronger after leveraging DSU’s existing relationships with enrollment consultants and marketing specialists who have helped it to identify and re-enroll students who stopped out of college before graduating. View Website

This grant will enable Swipe Out Hunger to hire the consultants needed to merge with the College and University Food Bank Alliance. One in three college students experience hunger, and challenges with meeting basic needs can be a major impediment to persistence and completion - an issue the pandemic has exacerbated. By merging, these two organizations will achieve greater scale and responsiveness to the needs of students and campuses post-pandemic. View Website

This grant will enable MDC to host postsecondary attainment-focused convenings for its Network for Southern Economic Mobility (NSEM), which is designed to improve the region's poor educational outcomes. This grant will support network building via peer learning and technical assistance activities for the seven current cities and an additional four to six. MDC will then coordinate inter-city visits and document successful policies and practices that are improving educational attainment and economic mobility. View Website

This grant will enable Ithaka S+R to design, implement and test an experimental pilot intervention in one state (likely Ohio) that will facilitate the release of stranded credits and settlement of institutional debt to allow students to use previously earned credits to earn a credential. Ithaka’s pilot “clearinghouse” will facilitate the exchange of debts between institutions, conduct outreach to students with stranded credits to encourage them to re-enroll, and enable students to continue their education with all earned credits and reduced debt.  Kresge joins the Lumina and Joyce Foundations in this effort and if it’s successful, Ithaka will pursue scaling the model. View Website

This grant will enable New America’s Education Policy program to pursue two different projects to help address higher education racial equity.  The first effort will help design a federal fund that addresses resource inequity and racial stratification in higher education.  The second project will analyze community college enrollment trends, interventions and impacts of pandemic-related changes. View Website

This grant provides general operating support for the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP), a national organization that advances postsecondary access and success for low-income and underrepresented students.   This grant will provide IHEP with support to develop and implement its first strategic plan in a decade; sustain its thought leadership on key policy issues like racial equity, institutional transparency and value; and execute its student-centered policy agenda through increased investment in its government affairs capacity. View Website

This grant will fund the implementation and integration phases of a merger between College Possible and College Forward, longtime Kresge grantees that together serve more than 27,000 students.  College Possible, based in St. Paul, will absorb the Austin-based College Forward.  The new entity will reach more students nationwide with near-peer college access and success advising services provided by AmeriCorps volunteers; become more financially stable through economies of scale and multiplied philanthropic relationships; and expand within Texas, a growing and diverse Education Team focus state with many students who need these services. View Website

This grant will enable the University of Michigan’s Youth Policy Lab to create a website to help Michigan adults identify, pursue and complete postsecondary programs leading to jobs with strong employment prospects that pay a living wage.  The website will disseminate timely and customized information about education and career pathways to individuals based on geography, career interest, and skill level.  The Lab will pilot this effort in several Michigan colleges with Futures for Frontliners applicants (a tuition assistance program for adults without a college degree who worked in essential industries during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic). View Website

This cross-team grant (Education and American Cities) will fund a New York University professor and author, Jodie Adams Kirschner, to write a book using the stories of low-income and students of color in American cities to illustrate college access barriers, rising student debt, and income-based disparities in higher education persistence and attainment.  It builds on three years of ECMC Foundation research funding and will include in-depth reporting and interviews with students and their families primarily in Kresge’s focus city of Memphis, but also in Chicago, Nashville and New York. View Website

To sustain community foundation engagement to support Florida college access and success programs. View Website

This general operating grant will enable the Florida College Access Network (FCAN) to implement its new strategic plan to support the state’s goal of 60% of residents having a high-quality postsecondary credential or degree by 2030. View Website

This grant will enable the Texas College Access Network (TxCAN) to reverse the recent downward trends in college enrollment. The pandemic has caused a 12.4% overall Texas college enrollment decline, and a 20.3% enrollment decline at community colleges. During this grant period, TxCAN will complete a new strategic plan and use its convening, capacity building, and professional development expertise to combat these downward enrollment trends. View Website

This grant will provide general operating support to SoCalCAN, one of the nation’s leading college access organizations, to address the negative effects of COVID-19 on enrollment and persistence on southern California’s underrepresented students. View Website

This operating grant will support the Tennessee College Access and Success Network (TCASN) to improve college completion efforts for underrepresented students while building institutional capacity. TCASN will continue to support the scaling of college access best practices statewide; diversify funding to expand staff and ensure financial sustainability; broaden and deepen formal partnerships with cities and higher education institutions to improve college completion; and expand its board to better represent its target populations. View Website

This grant will allow TN SCORE to hire full-time staff to support the Memphis Area Presidents’ Council (MAPC) to improve postsecondary access, persistence, and completion for low-income students of color in Kresge’s focus city of Memphis. In partnership with TN SCORE, the two groups plan to take the next steps to formalize their cross-sector collaboration by implementing student-centered best practices to improve college access and degree attainment for students of color in the Memphis area.  During the grant, TN SCORE and MAPC will facilitate a priority-setting and implementation process resulting in shared student-centered best practices, strategies, and an advocacy agenda. View Website

This grant will expand Wayne State’s Warrior Way Back (WWB) program to support the learning, physical and socio-economic well-being of non-traditional, “comebacker” students who left college, but who have re-enrolled. The grant will enable Wayne State to expand the number of Warrior Way Back students while providing better advising, academic support, and career planning, to ultimately shorten time to degrees and lower student costs. View Website