The U.S. Department of Education announced on Tuesday the winners of its new First in the World grant program, giving a total of $75-million to 24 colleges and universities that have pledged to improve college access and student learning while reducing the overall cost of a degree.
The program, unveiled in May, is part of a suite of initiatives introduced by the Obama administration over the past few years—including its controversial college-ratings system—that aim to reduce barriers to higher education faced by low-income and first-generation students.
The first grantees include a range of community colleges and public and private four-year institutions in 17 states.
“The best solutions to our greatest education challenges don’t come from anyone in Washington, but rather from great schools and great presidents like the ones who successfully competed for these awards,” Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, said during a call with reporters.
As the program’s name suggests, a key motivation is to meet President Obama’s goal—set in 2009—for the U.S. population to have the highest share of college graduates in the world by 2020. More specifically, the department hopes to reduce the time it takes many students to graduate, increase the transfer rates of community-college students to four-year institutions, and encourage more enrollment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics programs—the STEM fields.
“Too many American students fail to realize the rewards of completing their college degree,” said Cecilia Muñoz, the White House director of domestic policy.
Winning Ideas
Southern New Hampshire University, a regional institution turned online powerhouse, received a $3.9-million grant to expand its competency-based learning program for part-time students, known as College for America, while enrolling more-traditional students in courses for credit instead of remedial courses.
“The well-documented failure of remedial and developmental education has had terrible personal and economic consequences for underrepresented and low-income working adults as well as for our nation as a whole,” Cathael Kazin, the university’s chief academic officer, said in a news release.
Other colleges selected by the department emphasized the value of technology in promoting access to higher education while keeping costs low.
Hampton University, a historically black institution in Virginia, will use its grant of $3.5-million to build a 24-hour computer lab. The university also plans to make more textbooks available online to reduce the burden of textbook prices on students.
William Harvey, the college’s president, said the technology would allow the college to make a “student-centered approach” a priority by creating “living learning” centers where students with similar academic interests can meet on a regular basis.
LaGuardia Community College, part of the City University of New York, was awarded $2.9-million to expand its peer-mentoring program. Gail O. Mellow, the college’s president, said in an interview that she had already heard from students who were excited about the opportunities the grant money would provide.
With peer mentoring—especially for community-college students who may be the first in their families to attend college—"you get more advising to students, and the peers get to be capable and flexible as students,” Ms. Mellow said.
The money will also allow the college to introduce first-year seminars in each discipline it offers and to enroll more students in courses for credit rather than remedial classes.
Other recipients and the amount of their grants are as follows:
Arizona State University at Tempe, $3,999,955
Bay Path University, in Massachusetts, $3,548,322
Bryn Mawr College, in Pennsylvania, $1,653,186
Central Georgia Technical College, $3,215,009
College of New Rochelle, in New York, $3,998,781
Delta State University, in Mississippi, $1,660,957
Gateway Technical and Community College, in Kentucky, $3,327,881
Georgia Institute of Technology, $3,800,000
Indiana State University, $1,627,322
Jacksonville State University, in Alabama, $3,175,302
Kennesaw State University, in Georgia, $3,209,405
Lee College District, in Texas, $2,690,954
Northeastern University, in Massachusetts, $3,920,926
Purdue University at West Lafayette, $2,373,003
State University of New York at Oswego, $2,885,126
South Dakota State University, $3,599,996
Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi, $3,301,524
University of Minnesota, $2,828,912
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, $3,030,323
University of Southern California, $3,203,257
Western Michigan University, $3,217,511
More information about the grants and the recipients is available on the Education Department’s website.
The selected institutions will present what they have achieved to the Education Department at the end of the year. While the department has not specified other ways it will gather information on the results, Ms. Mellow said she hoped the department would make data on each college’s programs available online.
“You can really create a very vibrant community if you understand how to engage practitioners into sharing and analyzing their own work and then capturing that knowledge through digital platforms,” she said.
Next year, department officials said, they hope to expand the program to $100-million in grant funds, along with $75-million pledged specifically to support minority-serving institutions, which accounted for six of the 24 winners this year.
“We hope these grantees will help demonstrate what is possible when colleges and universities make innovation a priority,” said Ms. Muñoz.
Clarification (10/1/2014, 1:10 p.m.): This article originally listed a grant to the State University of New York as going to its Research Foundation. Grants to SUNY pass through that foundation, but this money actually is going to SUNY’s Oswego campus. The article has been updated to clarify that.
