New Evidence Shows Personalized Student Supports Pays Off — for Life 

For decades, policymakers and education reformers have chased the same question: How do we help students succeed? The answers have often focused on classrooms — improved curriculum, smaller class sizes, and better teachers. But a growing body of evidence suggests that learning, and the opportunity that it can unlock, doesn’t begin or end with instruction alone.

New research authored by economists Benjamin Goldman and Jamie Gracie, co-sponsored by The EdRedesign Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Opportunity Insights at Harvard University, offers concrete evidence proving the power of relationships and personalized student supports. The study, When Resources Meet Relationships: The Returns to Personalized Supports for Low-Income Students, finds that when schools pair concrete resources with personalized relationships, students’ outcomes improve — not only in the classroom, but well into adulthood.

At the center of the study is Communities In Schools (CIS), the largest integrated student supports provider in the United States, which embeds trained site coordinators in high-poverty schools. CIS serves more than two million students across more than 3,500 schools in 29 states and the District of Columbia each year, nearly three times the number served by the federal Head Start program.

These site coordinators aren’t charged with teaching classes or developing lesson plans. Instead, they help students navigate both academic and non-academic needs that often derail learning — including housing instability, health and mental health issues, family crises, and food insecurity — all while building trust-based relationships that anchor students to school.

The results were significant: Students who received three years of CIS support saw meaningful gains in test scores, higher graduation rates, and increased college enrollment. More striking still, the researchers project that these short-term gains translate into a 4.3 percent increase in annual earnings by age 27, adding up to more than $75,000 in additional lifetime income ($36,000 in present day value).

“It’s important to note that the academic gains we observe from CIS programs are only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to explaining improvements in graduation rates and earnings,” notes study co-author Gracie, a postdoctoral fellow at EdRedesign. “CIS helps keep students engaged in school and reduces adverse outcomes such as suspensions. These non-cognitive improvements nearly equally contribute to the program’s long-run impact.”  

Why relationships make the difference

What makes personalized supports unique isn’t only the outcomes — it’s how they’re provided. The study shows that resources alone are not enough. What matters even more is how students access them, namely through building relationships with a trusted adult. Progressing that work is a cornerstone of EdRedesign’s Institute for Success Planning.

Led by EdRedesign Deputy Director Tauheedah Jackson, the Institute for Success Planning partners with teams of local leaders in urban, suburban, and rural communities to build, scale, and sustain place-based collaborations between neighborhood partners that center relationship-based personalized supports to create greater access and opportunity.  

“At the core of Success Planning is an adult navigator, a caring adult who fosters a positive individual relationship with a child and their family, ensuring they are known, seen, heard and supported,” says Jackson. “Navigators serve as champions, mentors, advocates, and connectors. They eliminate barriers and create access to opportunities by co-creating an individualized plan for action that captures a youth’s strength’s, needs, interests, and goals.”

In practical terms, a navigator might help a student get glasses so they can see the board in a classroom, connect a family to stable housing, or intervene early when attendance begins to slip. Individually, these actions may seem modest, but collectively, the research shows, they fundamentally change students’ educational and life trajectories.

A practical policy matter

The implications of this research extend beyond one program or organization. The study estimates that a $3,000 per-student CIS investment over three years yields substantial returns per student — raising individual adult earnings and, in turn, boosting tax revenue.

“We’ve seen personalized supports be effectively implemented in red, blue, and purple communities and in rural and urban settings,” says Jackson. “While personalized supports can be implemented anywhere, we often find they are most effective when paired with local cross-sector collaboration, which ensures that public, private, and other resources are efficiently channeled towards reaching students and helping them succeed.”  

At a time when policymakers are debating how best to allocate limited dollars, EdRedesign says the study’s findings offer a promising strategy to amplify the impact of existing initiatives. From college access programs to rent assistance and job training, personalized supports boost the impact of local, state, or federal programs, ensuring that they reach the students and families who need them most.  

While inequality and declining opportunity can feel intractable, Goldman and Gracie’s latest research points to a proven approach leaders across sectors can adopt. Providing relationship-based personalized supports can improve outcomes for struggling students, both in the classroom and over the long run, and has the potential to scale in nearly any setting.