Inclusive Economy Lab Fighting Poverty and Inequality: The Inclusive Economy Lab Goes to Community college
The University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy / April 15, 2019
By Ed Frauenheim
A partnership between the University of Chicago’s Inclusive Economy Lab and nonprofit student support organization One Million Degrees aims to help transform community colleges into more powerful engines of economic mobility.
There’s a lot of room for improvement. Only a third of first-time, full-time students who enroll in community colleges nationally earn an associate degree within three years.
But researchers at the Inclusive Economy Lab are hopeful about the impact of One Million Degrees (OMD), and are in the midst of a multi-year study of its efforts to help disadvantaged students. The study, a rigorous randomized controlled trial involving more than 4,000 students at the City Colleges of Chicago and Harper College in suburban Palatine, should lead to more effective policies at institutions that can play a key role in alleviating poverty, says Kelly Hallberg MPP’05, a Inclusive Economy Lab researcher who is one of the principal investigators on the OMD study.
