Confronting the System: A Comparative Case Study of How Cross-Sector Education Collaborations Address Postsecondary Equity

• In Event: College Access and System-Level Practices

Abstract

Cross-sector education collaborations, sometimes termed “collective impact” or “cradle-to-career” initiatives, have emerged in recent years across the U.S. as local interventions attempting to align services among educational institutions, government, businesses, nonprofits, and philanthropies to improve population-level educational outcomes (Henig et al., 2015, 2016; Riehl et al., 2019). This study utilizes comparative case study methods to understand how two cross-sector education collaborations in the Pacific Northwest addressed equity in their work to improve postsecondary degree access and attainment in their local communities. Findings have implications for program implementation in other cross-sector education collaborations and highlight the ways different organizations understand and enact equity-related practices in order to improve postsecondary-related outcomes in their communities.

Author

• Elaine W. Leigh, RAND Corporation