By Bill DeBaun, Senior Director of Data and Strategic Initiatives
Reading time: Two minutes
State-level policies can change the nature of college and career advising across the United States. Through our current Postsecondary Pathways Project,
the National College Attainment Network (NCAN) identified eight of these policy levers and is currently focused on how states adopt and advance them. More information on these levers, and states current conditions related to them, are now available
via a new, online interactive dashboard.
The eight policy levers, identified through conversations among the NCAN team, our state partners, and other external
stakeholders, include:
Provision student-level FAFSA completion data to local education agencies.
Use statewide National Student Clearinghouse contracts to provision postsecondary outcomes data.
Implement universal FAFSA policies that increase FAFSA completion.
Designate a state-level agency, initiative, or campaign with responsibility for college and career readiness programming.
Shift state financial aid programs toward need-based, rather than merit-based, awards.
Increase the share of states’ budgets invested in higher education.
Expand dual enrollment policies to increase high school students’ early access to college coursework.
Along with identifying the levers themselves, NCAN also classified states according to their current conditions (as we currently understand them) with each policy. Our intention is to update where states fall according to each lever on a monthly basis.
This tool is a useful way to look for opportunities to shift policies on the margin that can positively impact students’ postsecondary preparation, experiences, and outcomes. The dashboard specifies why NCAN bucketed each state and what kinds of criteria
would be required to “level up” to the next tier for each lever.
The fifteen states NCAN is partnering with as part of the Project are the target, but NCAN stands ready to support any state who wants to make a change and needs the
information on how and why to do so. Please reach out if you’d like more information or would like to clarify anything about your state’s current conditions.
The interactive dashboard allows for exploration by lever (i.e., see all states
at once according to a lever) or by state (i.e., see all levers at once for a given state).
The announcement of these focus priorities comes at a time of great promise for state college and career readiness policies. NCAN recently
announced a series of state policy working groups that will support members looking to deepen
their impact on state higher education policy. Through these working groups, NCAN will connect members with tools, resources, and skills to change state policy. Activities will include:
State policy research, including proposals, legislation, and state rankings.
Support with policy and advocacy strategy, including help building a coalition and cultivating champions.
Tailored messaging tools, such as one-pagers, social media toolkits, and persuasive framing language.
A community of practice to discuss, debrief, and learn from experts in the field and your peers.
For more information on NCAN’s state policy levers, please contact NCAN's Senior Director of Data and Strategic Initiatives Bill DeBaun at debaunb@ncan.org or NCAN's Senior Director of Policy and Advocacy Catherine
Brown at brownc@ncan.org.
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