This analysis was conducted by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and discusses the availability of federal tax credits for higher education for low-income students. Currently, low-income students who attend college face high costs of attendance even after taking into account governmental and institutional aid. In 2003-2004, 85 percent of undergraduates from families with incomes below $20,000 had unmet financial need.

The Government Accountability Office conducted this study on low-income and minority serving institutions- including Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges, Hispanic Serving Institutions, Alaska Native Serving Institutions, Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, and other postsecondary institutions that serve low-income students. GAO examined the programs to determine how institutions used their Title III and Title V grants, what objectives and strategies the Department of Education has developed for these programs, and to what extent Education monitors the grants.

In this policy brief from the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan, authors examine the relationship between education and health. The findings include evidence that better educated people have lower morbidity rates from the most common diseases in the United States. Authors conclude that education policy has the potential to improve the overall health in our country.

From the Center for Social Development, this policy brief offers ideas on how IDAs and WIA can collaborate in increase access to education and training. Adults with a high school education earn on average $26,332, compared to $32,154 for Associate degrees and $42,116 for Bachelor degrees. Therefore, expanded IDA programs can improve access to education for the low-income population.

This report, co-authored by the National Governors Association (NGA) Center for Best Practices and Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC) is based largely on a roundtable meeting conducted in April 2000 by both organizations to discuss expanding postsecondary opportunities for low-income working parents and welfare recipients.

Because meaningful improvements in literacy require more hours of instruction than most adult learners receive, low student persistence is a critical issue for providers of adult education. This interim report from the Literacy in Libraries Across America persistence study describes adult students' characteristics and patterns of participation in nine library literacy programs and examines new strategies developed by the programs to raise persistence. Based on an implementation analysis and a look at participation levels before and as the strategies were put in place, the findings highlight public libraries' advantages as providers of literacy services and point to lessons for program design and implementation.

This paper looks at curricular and program redesign strategies being used in community colleges today to speed nontraditional students' advancement from lower levels of skill into credential programs and to shorten the time commitment that earning a credential demands of them. It presents a framework for understanding the range of experimentation with program and class reformatting and redesign, and identifies programs that exemplify promising approaches. The paper concludes with issues and questions that MDRC will need to address in assessing whether to proceed with a research program focused on program redesign efforts geared to working adults' needs.

Examining federal, state, and institutional programs, the paper presents a framework for understanding challenges to securing comprehensive financial assistance for low-income working students. The paper identifies promising approaches for supplementing student financial aid based on a range of programs implemented in the past and planned for the future. It also raises issues that bear consideration in designing a program that would be both effective in ways that can be measured through random assignment studies and replicable.

The Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) studied TANF applicants taking part in a post-secondary education program through a local non-profit while on the TANF caseload. By interviewing students, this study explored the challenges and rewards of the program experiences of low-income mothers.

This report from the Brookings Institution reviews the role of education in helping low-income children advance economically. Authored by Isabel Sawhill, she concludes that the U.S. education system tends to reinforce rather than compensate for differences in family background, and in order to strengthen opportunity for America’s children, more effective investments in education need to be made.