This grant will launch strategies including fellowships, a train-the-trainer curriculum, and workshops that strengthen Detroit students’ pathways to and from HBCUs. Kresge-funded research shows that HBCUs are popular among Detroiters, but high school guidance counselors have limited knowledge of this postsecondary option. It will be piloted with youth-serving organizations on Marygrove’s campus. View Website

This grant will support the Reinvestment Fund’s HBCU Brilliance Fund to evaluate the work of its inaugural cohort, which integrates access to capital, technical assistance, and peer learning. Lessons from the first cohort will be applied as the program launches a second cohort, with a focus on engaging HBCUs in Kresge priority cities. Participating institutions will receive blended capital investments to support the development or implementation of high-priority, community anchor planning or institution projects. View Website

This supports Andrew Goodman's Vote Everywhere program, which seeks to strengthen civic education and leadership development efforts at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, with an eye toward helping HBCUs build long-term capacity for democratic participation and community engagement. View Website

As the only hub for all 650+ MSIs, the Center conducts research to improve student outcomes, promote a culture of institutional success among MSI leaders, provide opportunities for MSI early career faculty to research student success, and build MSI data collection and reporting capacity. View Website

This grant provides general operating support to the National Student Legal Defense Network (Student Defense), a nonpartisan organization using litigation and policy advocacy to advance students’ rights to educational opportunities.  Student Defense has a strong record of representing borrowers against for-profit colleges, helping secure billions of dollars in loan discharges for half a million borrowers defrauded by these entities.  Renewed Kresge support will enable Student Defense to continue supporting policies aimed at creating a fairer and more effective system of protections and oversight to promote higher education equity, as well as support its new Safeguarding Higher-Ed Through AI Practices & Ethics (SHAPE AI) initiative. View Website

Listen4Good,will launch an 18‑month community of practice for 10 Los Angeles-based organizations to improve student access and success by incorporating a proven coaching model, technical tools, and peer learning designed to gather feedback from students, families, and staff. View Website

This grant supports a new communications campaign, “Level Up Michigan!” (LUM) to raise awareness among residents in Detroit and throughout the state about Michigan’s new tuition-free community college and need-based scholarship program for those attending four-year universities. Michigan has historically offered very little need-based student aid, and awareness of these new programs has not reached low-income and underrepresented Michiganders. Boosting visibility should yield greater uptake rates and increased postsecondary enrollment immediately after high school. View Website

This cross-team grant (Detroit and Education) supports the Detroit College Access Network, a longtime grantee co-founded by Kresge, and an essential intermediary that reduces fragmentation across the postsecondary pipeline by aligning K-12, higher education, community-based organizations and other partners around shared strategies and milestones promoting college access and success. View Website

This grant supports APLU’s Coalition of Urban Serving Universities (USU) to define the characteristics and values of public urban-serving universities and elevate their role within higher education research, strategy and practice. USU will produce a field-informed framework that distinguishes urban-serving institutions from urban-located ones, and highlights their deserved recognition as a distinct, community-focused sector. The project will also include six case studies of urban-serving colleges, four of which will be in Kresge focus cities, to illustrate how these defining characteristics are enacted in practice. View Website

This will enable APIA Scholars to maintain the membership of six U.S. Pacific jurisdictions in a valuable interstate commission on higher education, whose funding has been cut by the current administration. That membership allows students from western states and territories to access in-state or reduced tuition for programs unavailable locally (resulting in $5 million of tuition savings last year). View Website

This is a contribution to Higher Education Forward, a pooled fund among a dozen foundations that tracks state-level anti-DEI policies, elevates thought leaders, advances strategic communications, and supports legal assistance against anti-DEI laws and lawsuits. View Website

This grant will bring to Kresge's focus cities the BRIDGE program, a professional learning program that equips educators and institutions to better understand and to legally support undocumented students. View Website

This grant supports Project MALES aims to strengthen institutional capacity, align K–12 and postsecondary systems, and develop student leadership through Research Institutes and annual Texas Student Leadership Summits. Outcomes include a revised consortium plan, enhanced collaboration, and leadership development to improve college attainment for thousands across Texas, an Education focus state. View Website

This grant will enable College Spring to expand its in-school college preparation program to six to eight urban under-resourced Texas districts over three years, reaching 12,000 low-income students. View Website

This grant supports Veterans Education Success (VES), a nonpartisan organization that champions the rights of student veterans, will elevate veterans’ voices while advancing postsecondary access, quality, and accountability through media training, nonpartisan advocacy convenings with policymakers, and expansion of a free legal aid clinic for student veterans. View Website

This grant will provide general operating support to UNITE-LA, which focuses on postsecondary access and attainment in the nation’s second largest city, including college advising, dual enrollment, degree and credential completion, and workforce alignment. View Website

This cross-team grant with the American Cities Program will support the Cowen Institute to strengthen the New Orleans College and Career Attainment Network (NOLA CCAN). NOLA CCAN is a city-wide coordinated effort focused on increasing college access and success for low-income, first-generation, and students of color. The grant supports key staff positions, expands FAFSA completion efforts, enhances counselor training, and strengthens data use across 70+ high schools and organizations. View Website

This general operating support grant helps the Project on Predatory Student Lending (PPSL) strengthen pathways to an affordable, quality college education by exposing and eliminating predatory behavior in higher education. View Website

This cross-team grant with the American Cities Program supports the College Advising Corps’ (CAC) planning efforts to place near-peer college advisors in five Fresno high schools in fall 2026. View Website

This cross-team grant from the Education and American Cities Programs will support MDRC to partner with Tennessee Achieves (tnAchieves) and Southwest Tennessee Community College (SWTCC), the only community college in Memphis, to strengthen comprehensive student support systems. View Website