Publications
Case Study
July 24, 2025
Public and Academic Libraries in Partnership
Advancing Digital Literacy in Illinois
Introduction Community college libraries and public libraries play a vital role in bridging the digital divide by providing equitable access to technology, internet connectivity, and digital literacy across the United States.[1] Community college libraries support students’ academic success by providing access to specialized software, online research tools, and technical instruction, while public libraries extend this support to the broader community by offering digital literacy workshops, lending devices, and providing multilingual technology support. However, these two library types…
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Research Report
July 23, 2025
Collecting Additional Data on Students with Disabilities in the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS)
Benefits and Challenges
In 2024, the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative (NPEC), an advisory group to the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the US Department of Education in 2024 commissioned this report, which we completed in February 2025. The report’s purpose was to assess the feasibility of expanding the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) to capture better information about students with disabilities enrolled in US postsecondary institutions.
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Research Report
July 16, 2025
Measuring the Economic Value of a Liberal Education
This report offers a nuanced, student-centered perspective on the economic and educational value of a liberal education. Using the Liberal Arts and Sciences Educational Experience (LASEE) Framework and rich, longitudinal student-level data from public colleges and universities, we examined how exposure to core liberal arts features relates to student outcomes.
Issue Brief
July 10, 2025
Examining the Impact of Automatic Admissions and Proactive Financial Aid Guarantees at the University of Texas at Austin
An Interview with Dr. Matt Giani
The University of Texas at Austin is piloting a bold, data-informed strategy aimed at removing key barriers to access for low-income students. This new initiative combines automatic admissions with proactive financial aid guarantees, with the goal of encouraging more students from low-income backgrounds to both apply and enroll.
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Research Report
July 1, 2025
How Researchers Use PSEO Data to Study Postsecondary Outcomes and Inform Policy
A report for the PSEO Coalition from Ithaka S+R
This literature review summarizes key findings from research and practical applications related to PSEO data. By examining how PSEO data has been used in higher education research and policy, this review lays the groundwork for a national research agenda that strengthens understanding of the links between education and workforce connections, student success, and the economic value of postsecondary credentials.
Case Study
June 18, 2025
Maximizing Impact Through Collaboration at Chatham Community Library
A Case Study of a Joint-Use Library Partnership
Introduction Community college and public libraries both serve overlapping populations—including students, job seekers, adult learners, ESL learners, and low-income and underserved communities—playing vital roles in supporting and enriching their local communities. Libraries connect patrons and community members to critical information related to basic needs and also provide reference support, digital literacy training, and technology access. Public and community college libraries tend to operate independently from each other, but through collaborative partnerships they could enhance their impact and…
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Research Report
May 29, 2025
Limited by Design
The Policy Framework of Legal Access in Prison
In this project, we examine the national landscape of access to legal information in prisons, with a particular focus on how law librarians facilitate and mediate that access. Our report aims to shed light on this key group of actors: documenting how law librarians work to support meaningful access to the courts behind bars, how services vary across states, and what barriers limit their ability to assist incarcerated patrons.
Research Report
May 1, 2025
Making AI Generative for Higher Education
Adoption and Challenges Among Instructors and Researchers
This report presents the findings of the interviews that asked faculty to reflect on their perceptions of and experiences with generative AI in both teaching and research. Our study was driven by the following questions: To what degree are faculty adopting generative AI, and how is this changing their approaches and practices in teaching and research? What challenges are they facing in the aftermath of generative AI’s emergence? What support do they still need?…
Issue Brief
April 17, 2025
Supporting Adult Learner Engagement in Kentucky
Addressing Administrative Holds, Past Due Balances, and Targeted Supports
Ithaka S+R and Kentucky CPE worked together to understand how administrative holds and unpaid balances affect institutions and adults with come credit, no credential. This reportsummarizes our key findings and offers potential solutions for institutions and states across the country, using examples from Kentucky. Part one covers administrative holds, part two focuses on past due balances, and part three discusses how institutions can adjust to the changing landscape of administrative holds.
Case Study
April 15, 2025
Leveraging Existing Efforts to Enhance College Fluency
Insights from Montgomery County Community College
To further examine and develop effective strategies to foster college fluency, Ithaka S+R and BMCC have collaborated on the College Fluency Capacity Building initiative with support from IMLS. The fourth case study in this series looks at Montgomery County Community College in Pennsylvania and explores how effective MCCC has been at connecting students to resources even in the absence of a dedicated college fluency program, while pointing to the additional impact these efforts could have if they were formalized.
Issue Brief
April 8, 2025
Advancing Student Success at High-Graduation-Rate Institutions
Insights from the American Talent Initiative Student Success Research Grant Program
The American Talent Initiative’s Student Success Research Grant Program supported research studies aimed at deepening our understanding of the institutional practices and strategies that can improve student success at high-graduation-rate institutions. The findings will offer actionable recommendations for supporting lower-income students, while raising awareness of the challenges that they—and the institutions that serve them—continue to face. These short briefs aim to equip institutional leaders with key research insights, empowering them to implement strategies that foster meaningful, lasting change.
Research Report
March 31, 2025
Terrain Leveling
Design Strategies for Improving Higher Education in Prisons
Tommaso Bardelli, Sam Johnson, Tammy Ortiz, Elizabeth Austin, Laura Brown, Catharine Bond Hill, Sindy Lopez, Molly McGowan, Amy Mielke, Ess Pokornowski
A growing body of research documents the barriers faced by incarcerated students—such as limited access to technology and conflicts with correctional staff—but far less attention has been paid to the role of the built environment in shaping educational experiences. This project, led by Ennead Lab and Ithaka S+R, examines how spatial, architecture, and design features impact learning inside prisons. It draws on qualitative interviews and site visits to advance both research findings and a portfolio of design interventions.
Research Report
March 27, 2025
Researcher Challenges and Experiences with Data Services
While there is general consensus that institutions should provide a coordinated research data services support infrastructure to their researchers, determining the most effective way to do this has proven more difficult, especially in light of the fast-paced technological changes that have precipitated new forms of research collaborations, methodologies, and discoveries. In this report, we share findings from interviews with researchers that provide information about their data management needs and their current level of engagement with campus data services.
Research Report
March 19, 2025
Meeting the Climate Emergency
University Information Infrastructure for Researching Wicked Problems
Contemporary societies face a range of urgent threats to the well-being of individuals, nations, and the natural world. These high stakes “wicked problems,” as Don Waters calls them in this report, present challenges that are simultaneously scientific, technological, social, and creative. They require expertise from across the disciplines to understand, and equally complex public and political engagement, to overcome. Waters makes the case that America’s research universities are exceptionally well-equipped to address these wicked problems.
Research Report
March 19, 2025
Balancing Access and Accountability
Assessing the Implications of the New Federal Transcript-Hold Regulation for Higher Education - Part 3
This report is the third in a three-part series examining how institutions of higher education have responded to state and federal policies limiting the use of transcript holds for unpaid balances, produced in partnership between Ithaka S+R and AACRAO. The prior reports explored the anticipated and actual impacts of the July 2024 federal regulation limiting transcript holds on higher education institutions in states that did not have existing laws related to the practice.
Playbook
March 5, 2025
Playbook for Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts
How to Design and Implement Statewide Pathways from Community Colleges to Independent Colleges
One way to achieve bachelor's degree attainment for community college transfer students at scale is through state- and region-level initiatives dedicated to supporting transfer from community colleges to independent colleges and universities. The Teagle Foundation and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations’ Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts initiative aimed to create such pathways. This playbook draws on the experiences of grantees building pathways in 14 states.
Case Study
February 27, 2025
Holistic Credit Mobility Strategies in Action
A Case Study Report on State, System, and Institutional Efforts to Smooth the Path to a College Degree for Mobile Students
To understand the complex nature of learning recognition and credit transfer in American postsecondary education and examine the systemic barriers to entry many students face as they navigate its institutions, Ithaka S+R conducted a series of qualitative interviews in fall 2024 with state and system-level leaders in Idaho, Illinois, Ohio, and the University of North Carolina System, and representatives from Charter Oak State College and Florida International University.
Research Report
February 26, 2025
Magnitude and Bond
A Field Study on Black Literary Arts Organizations
Black literary arts organizations nurture literary talent, establish living literary canons, and generate thriving communities of artists and readers, cultivating Black spaces for sharing the vulnerable processes necessary to invent new ways of saying important things. This report, which explores the sustainability of Black literary arts organizations, grew out of a research process undertaken through a collaboration between Cave Canem and Ithaka S+R. It explores the characteristics of Black literary arts organizations and the adaptive strategies they employ.
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Research Report
January 22, 2025
Charting the Course
Case Studies in OER Sustainability
Over the past several years, OERs have gained significant traction across higher education, driven by a combination of grassroots campus efforts and state agencies of higher education or system-wide initiatives. The rationale behind these efforts has been clear: to alleviate the financial burden on students by reducing the cost of course materials. But OERs offer other advantages as well, serving as a catalyst for instructional innovation and helping to create a more inclusive learning environment.
Case Study
January 16, 2025
Empowering Students to Navigate College
Insights from the College Fluency Initiatives at Austin Community College
The third case study in this series looks at how Austin Community College in Texas has been developing college fluency programs with both their library and non-library faculty and staff. The college libraries play a critical role in promoting college fluency across 11 campuses. Other non-library initiatives at this college that also contribute to supporting students to navigate college underscore just how much of a college-wide effort it takes to promote greater college fluency.