How researchers, policymakers, and institutions can support postsecondary students

Last December, we published “Supporting students to and through college: What does the evidence say?”—a comprehensive analysis of the evidence on interventions designed to promote college access and completion. The report examines evidence from two decades of research evaluating programs that help students transition to and succeed in postsecondary education.

The report synthesized findings from rigorous evaluations of programs to improve college access and completion, including comprehensive support programs, advising interventions, and “low-touch” approaches. While the evidence points to promising strategies for supporting students, it also reveals persistent challenges in implementation and scaling effective practices.

This post summarizes key lessons that emerged from the report for three audiences essential to advancing college access and success: researchers, policymakers, and institutions implementing student success programs. We highlight two key take-aways for each audience here and refer interested readers to the full report.

Lessons for researchers

The literature on college access and completion interventions is extensive: We reviewed rigorous studies of more than 50 interventions. Our review also points to opportunities to strengthen future research in this domain.

More complete and standardized cost reporting is needed

Reporting on program costs is not standardized across studies and is often incomplete, limiting both interpretation of individual studies and comparison of cost-effectiveness across interventions. The literature would benefit from more systematic approaches to documenting program costs and cost-effectiveness.

Researchers should consider not only direct program costs, but also potential indirect costs. It is natural that an institution or program provider would be interested in their own direct costs, and these are often the easiest to measure. But many programs increase costs outside the program by, for example, encouraging participants to enroll in more credits or to take-up tutoring or other services for which they are eligible.¹ Similarly, some successful access programs induce students to enroll in more selective institutions that tend to have higher spending for instruction and student support services, an important indirect cost of such a program (which may account for its success). A program might also reduce costs elsewhere if participants substitute the program for services they would have otherwise received from another source.

Accounting fully for costs requires information on treatment contrasts—specifically what additional services or supports program participants received compared to students in the control condition. Data on treatment contrast can be difficult and expensive to collect, but without this information, we cannot assess the cost effectiveness of the intervention relative to other approaches. When collecting treatment contrast data is logistically or financially prohibitive, providing even a qualitative assessment could be helpful. Specifically, providing as much information as possible about (1) take-up rates for different program components, (2) potential substitution with other available services, and (3) potential changes in use of existing institutional resources would inform the interpretation of the findings.

In addition, whenever possible, studies should explicitly differentiate between real resource costs and transfers. While metrics like program costs or institutional costs per percentage point improvement in completion are valuable for institutions making resource allocation decisions, they typically don’t capture the full social costs or benefits that should inform state and federal policy decisions. The social cost of an intervention is the program cost less transfers—it represents the additional resources used. (Ideally, the time and hassle costs for students would also be accounted for, though we did not review any studies that did so explicitly.) Depending on the context, these broader social costs could be either higher or lower than reported direct costs.

Analysis of long-run outcomes is critical

Most of the interventions we reviewed aim to improve either college enrollment or completion, and the evaluation studies focus on immediate educational outcomes—enrollment, persistence, and completion. Considerable evidence points to the benefits of post-secondary education for long-run outcomes like wages, but the effect of additional education induced by a particular program could be different. Tracking long-term outcomes presents logistical challenges, and many studies are under-powered to detect effects on wages even if participants can be matched to earnings data. Nevertheless, researchers should examine long-run outcomes whenever possible.

Credit reports are a potentially promising source of data on long-run outcomes. Such data could provide insight into the effects of college access and completion programs on financial distress among both completers and non-completers. Since poor student loan outcomes among those who start but don’t complete college is an important motivation behind completion efforts, looking at student loan outcomes directly also makes sense. These measures may also prove more sensitive than employment or earnings, allowing researchers to detect impacts with smaller sample sizes. We did not find studies in the college access and completion intervention literature that considered outcomes based on credit reports, but this has been done in other policy domains and is worth exploring.

Lessons for policymakers

The effectiveness of many access and completion interventions is often limited by the underlying complexity of the college application, financial aid, and other processes students need to navigate to complete a degree. In addition, many institutions simply do not have the resources necessary to effectively address student needs. These issues can only be addressed by policymakers.

Reform financial aid policy to provide better information sooner

Uncertainty about how much college will cost, how much financial aid will be available, and how students and their families will pay for college can be an important barrier to enrollment and completion, particularly among socioeconomically disadvantaged students. While many interventions have attempted to address this barrier through enhanced FAFSA completion support or financial aid advising (with some success), these efforts are ultimately stymied by the underlying complexity and uncertainty in the financial aid system. Policymakers should look for ways to provide students and their families with clear, reliable information about financial aid earlier in the process, ideally before students need to decide where to apply.

Federal policymakers could improve the required net price calculators so that students have a better idea of what college might cost them before they apply or require colleges to provide information about financial aid awards in a clearer, standardized format.

Action by states could be even more effective. For example, they could develop systems to provide definitive information about how much financial aid a student will receive at all public institutions in the state for those who complete FAFSA early in the fall of their senior year based on prior-prior year income. This way students would at least know how much the public institutions would cost them before they decide where to apply. (This does depend on FAFSA becoming available on time; while the 2024 FAFSA rollout was substantially delayed, the recently signed FAFSA Deadline Act requires FSA to release a fully operational FAFSA by October 1 of each year.) Providing this information even earlier and automatically (without having to complete FAFSA) or combining it with direct admissions – where students are also automatically admitted – could be even more powerful. Providing an aid guarantee so that students know what they will need to pay throughout their college career is also likely to increase enrollment. Some of these reforms could be facilitated by leveraging existing administrative data to automatically identify aid-eligible students. For example, Washington state recently began guaranteeing free tuition for students receiving food assistance.

Implementation of these reforms requires careful attention to sustained funding mechanisms. If such efforts are successful, more low-income students will enroll, necessitating larger financial aid budgets.

Provide more funding for student support and financial aid

Transparency and early information about the cost of college can only work if the cost of college is reasonable for students and their families. College affordability varies considerably across states, and in some places for some students, financial aid is simply not sufficient to make college affordable. And while evidence indicates that more intensive support services yield larger impacts on persistence and completion, institutions often do not have the resources to implement effective student support interventions at scale. In many cases, more funding – from state or federal governments – is needed.

Intensive programs with demonstrated effectiveness, such as ASAP, require substantial per-student investment, and institutions find it difficult to sustain even successful programs due to resource constraints. Some less-expensive interventions can also be effective and worth pursuing, but impacts will also typically be smaller. While the research discussed in this report does not speak to the best funding models for higher education, it does point to insufficient resources for student support and financial aid as the ultimate barrier to student success in many settings.  

Lessons for institutions and practitioners

Our analysis of college access and completion interventions yields important insights for postsecondary institutions.

Look for ways to reduce complexity

Rather than developing new interventions to help students navigate complex processes and requirements, institutions and policymakers should prioritize removing barriers and simplifying procedures. The more complex tasks someone has to complete successfully, the more likely they will fail at least once, getting off-track for college enrollment or completion. Reducing complexity may limit students’ autonomy and reduce choice to some extent. For example, institutions might reduce the number of majors or employ (hopefully smart) defaults, such as standard course schedules based on major. This could be a worthwhile trade-off if enough options remain and simplification reduces the number and complexity of decisions students have to make. While there is broad agreement among experts about the potential benefits of simplification, institutional inertia and complex governance structures can make such reforms difficult to achieve. In addition, each bit of complexity arose for some reason (possibly on purpose to keep program costs down).

The best ways to streamline and simplify are likely institution-specific, and more research is needed to understand how to implement these types of reforms. While it will be difficult to evaluate this type of reform in randomized controlled trials, the potential impact of systematic simplification efforts could be substantial and deserves serious consideration.

Institutions should pursue approaches they can implement well and sustain

The evidence suggests that more comprehensive interventions supporting students across multiple domains tend to yield better outcomes for college access and completion. Programs like ASAP that provide wraparound support have consistently improved completion rates across different student populations and institutional contexts. The logic is straightforward: students may encounter various obstacles on their path to completion, and comprehensive programs can address multiple barriers while allowing students to focus on their studies. Institutions that expect they can marshal the financial and other resources to develop and sustain comprehensive programs should strongly consider taking that approach.

However, institutions should not feel compelled to pursue only comprehensive approaches. More targeted interventions, while potentially producing smaller gains, can still meaningfully improve outcomes and can be cost-effective. Many institutions face significant challenges implementing and sustaining comprehensive programs due to financial limitations, staffing constraints, and operational complexities. Implementation studies often find that programs do not work as well when ported to a new institution, as they struggle to maintain fidelity to the original model. Even successful comprehensive programs have proven difficult to sustain over time due to their substantial costs.

Given these realities, institutions should prioritize interventions they can implement well and maintain long-term given their resource and operational constraints. The process of developing locally-tailored solutions may also help surface opportunities for structural improvements and foster cross-campus collaboration that enhances implementation. While comprehensive support remains the gold standard, thoughtfully designed less-comprehensive interventions that align with institutional capacity can still advance student success. The key is ensuring chosen approaches can be executed effectively and sustained over time rather than pursuing unsustainable programs that may ultimately be scaled back or eliminated despite showing promise.

Conclusion

Improving college access and completion requires efforts from multiple stakeholders. Our review of two decades of evidence points to clear opportunities and persistent challenges. Researchers can advance the field by standardizing cost reporting methodologies and examining long-term outcomes, helping institutions and policymakers make more informed decisions about resource allocation. Policymakers must address systemic barriers by reforming financial aid policies to provide earlier, clearer information to students and increasing funding for student support services. Institutions should focus on implementing interventions they can sustain, whether comprehensive or targeted, while working to reduce unnecessary complexity in their systems and processes. Continued research, additional resources, and careful attention to implementation can all contribute to helping more students access and complete college.