With the generous support of the Scheidel Foundation, the National College Attainment Network (NCAN) has been studying community-based organization (CBO) and higher education institution partnerships. First in a series of case studies, it is our hope that these resources will help our members and external partners form and maintain meaningful partnerships and increase positive postsecondary outcomes for all students.
Institutional partnerships for college access have been a cornerstone since Onward We Learn’s (OWL) original founding
as the College Crusade of Rhode Island in the 1980s. Their institutional partnerships for college success and persistence work began in 2015.
Overview
Onward We Learn serves students in 6th grade through college graduation. As Rhode Island’s GEAR UP grant recipient, OWL provides scholarships and partners with colleges and universities to offer institution specific awards. Their services
range from tutoring and college readiness support, college transition to college advising, assistance completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) as well as renewal and verification, career exploration, and leadership development, among others. GEAR UP funds activities
from 6th grade through the first year of college; from then on, OWL supports students through college graduation via other funding sources.
Deliverables
Onward We Learn has a very detailed memo of understanding (MOU) around college success coaching. They provide a coach on the three focused partner campuses, RIC, CCRI and URI, four days a week, as 80% of OWL students attend one of these three
schools. Coaches are OWL employees but they’re also an affiliate of the institution. With this partnership comes access to certain data such as midterm grades of all their students.
OWL students sign
a Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) release form allowing their staff to see student level university data. Students sign the FERPA release and indicate the postsecondary institution they will be attending in OWL’s customer relationship management system (CRM) via an app. Enrollment management representatives
from each partner institution also log into the CRM to see OWL students who will be attending their institution, and to retrieve the signed FERPA releases. Prior to the implementation of the CRM system, paper release forms and a student
list were signed and sent to enrollment management staff at each institution.
Over the last several years, they’ve cultivated mutually beneficial relationships with institutional partners. OWL staff will have
a table at college sponsored events like open houses and admitted student events. They also will welcome the general university student body to their own Onward student specific programming like FAFSA submission Fridays, FSA ID nights, community lunches,
destress before finals events, etc. College and university financial aid representatives or Office of Student Life staff will often come and assist at various OWL events.
The OWL team also collaborates with their institutional
partners for their summer bridge program. Their students participate in this program in addition to the college’s orientation. OWL and university staff walk them through the first-year checklist, show them facilities on campus, and ensure
they’ve completed all the pre-first day of class tasks.
Renewal and Evaluation
Due to their data sharing agreement, OWL staff can track student progress throughout the year, monitoring grades and other indicators or achievements such as dean’s list awards.
For URI, their college success coaching MOU is updated and renewed every year. It’s
signed by the Vice President of Student Affairs, and OWL's President. The new agreement is prepared in June so that it’s ready at the beginning of the institution’s fiscal year.
CCRI and RIC’s MOUs are both updated and renewed
every two years. This change from one to two years provides more time to implement the contents of the MOU before evaluating the program’s progress.
Evaluation begins in the spring and measures 1st to 2nd year and 2nd to 3rd year persistence, if a student meets the GPA requirements all years, if students are making satisfactory academic progress, among other indicators of program success.
OWL utilizes an external evaluating
company housed within the Center for Labor Markets and Policy at Drexel University (Philadelphia, PA), and who recently became housed at RIC, to demonstrate the organization’s value over a given year to an institution compared to their students’ peer
cohort who are not receiving similar supports. They also have an internal director of data and evaluation who holds a PStat certification, that studies the enrollment data, major, GPA, persistence to the next year, matriculation pacing of OWL students in real time to continuously provide updates to the institutions.
Maintaining Institution Partnerships
Having the coach on campus four days a week at these three institutions is incredibly helpful for OWL’s visibility. Both the campus coaches and Rossi-D'entremont have campus branded emails, so they receive all communications that go
out to the campus community. This allows her to maintain connection with campus leadership and stay abreast of staff changes. This has been helpful when multiple college dean or vice president roles changed, because those positions are heavily tied
to their MOUs.
Institutional Impact
The early awareness model of working with students from 6th grade through
college completion led to 73% of OWL college students being on track to graduate in four years, according to their 2021 annual report card. Additional successes were recently highlighted in their 2024 Annual Report. OWL’s program
has proven to be effectively creating cohort after cohort of well-prepared students when compared to their non-CBO supported peers.
Rossi-D'entremont mentioned that for OWL’s partners, “the real benefit to the institutions
in this is enrollment management, and our students are persisting well. They have the added wraparound support, so they are a desirable group of students to have. [Students] also get emergency funding from us, so [institutions] know that [students]
have a lot of safety net supports, and they're more likely to persist.”
Lessons Learned
“Having a strong handle on your data and outcomes is extremely important to creating meaningful partnerships with higher education institutions. Enrollment and persistence data of your students is of particular importance to them,” Rossi-D'entremont
said.
She also noted, “Find out if the college or university you seek to create a partnership with already has an existing MOU template their legal counsel has approved them to use. Using the college’s template saves time and edits later.
Do research on the leadership you’ll be meeting with beforehand. Are they personally native to your area, and thus more likely to be familiar with your work? Or are you starting from scratch at introductions? What are they prioritizing in this
new role and where does your work align?
Ask directly what supports the institution would be most enthusiastic about. Rossi-D'entremont noted that for OWL’s partners, additional capacity with financial aid related programming is the one of the most appreciated aspects of their supports.
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