Long Receives Gates Foundation Grant

Professor Bridget Terry Long has received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to conduct quantitative research on college enrollment and completion over the next four years. Understanding Barriers and Examining Interventions: A Project to Study Postsecondary Access and Success Using State Administrative Data will be supported by a $1.6 million grant, part of the foundation's Postsecondary Success initiative to improve college enrollment and completion rates in America. The foundation aims to double the number of low-income students who earn postsecondary degrees by age 26 -- an increase of approximately 250,000 graduates each year.

"I am very excited about starting the work and pleased that the Gates Foundation is interested in investing in research on college access and success," said Long, whose research focuses on state aid programs, diversity issues, cost containment, remediation, and community college concerns. She applies economic theories and methods to examine various aspects of higher education in the United States including access, choice, success in postsecondary education, factors that influence college student outcomes, and the effects of financial aid policies on colleges.

Long will work with University of California at Davis Professor Michal Kurlaender, Ed.M.'97, Ed.D.'05; Vanderbilt University Professor Stella Flores, Ed.M.'02, Ed.D.'07;  and Stanford University Professor Eric Bettinger on the project which will use state and university administrative datasets to examine barriers to college access of underserved students and possible solutions or policy interventions to improve collegiate outcomes. Additionally, they will investigate the role of community colleges in facilitating increased access and success in postsecondary attainment for underserved students.

"There is no greater door to opportunity in this country than access to a quality education," said Hilary Pennington, director of U.S. Special Initiatives at the Gates Foundation. "Today, a college credential is the equivalent of high school degree just a decade ago. That is why the foundation is making a long-term commitment to dramatically increase postsecondary completion rates, especially among low-income young people -- a goal that is both ambitious and necessary."

Since 2000, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has invested nearly $4 billion in grants and scholarships to increase opportunity in the U.S. by improving high school graduation and college readiness rates, and expanding access to college. The postsecondary success initiative will build upon these investments to help the foundation and its partners ensure more young people have the education they need to be successful in life and work, ultimately expanding access to opportunity for more Americans.