Current Projects and Resources

Current Research

The Institute for Poverty and Urban Education was started in 2017 to determine how to ensure that under-resourced students could achieve a middle-class lifestyle with a family-sustaining wage.

The purpose of the current research was to shed light on the limited economic mobility of the under-resourced Cuyahoga Community College students documented by Raj Chetty of Harvard University. The researchers sought to better understand the trajectories that under-resourced community college students follow in their transitions to adulthood. Researchers tracked under-resourced Tri-C students from 1984, when they were 19-22 years old, and followed them to the present to determine whether they achieved upward economic mobility.

The researchers also surveyed current students to determine the barriers they might face in getting to graduation. Many students indicated multiple needs, such as food and housing insecurity, and lack of transportation

Institute members are committed to continuing to document the barriers confronting community college students, and to developing the necessary support services to ensure that all college students can complete a degree and achieve upward economic mobility.

Other Projects

Intake Project
Tri-C students often face serious challenges that threaten their success, but they are not always aware of the services available to them. A variety of intake processes exist at the College which are not currently coordinated with one another. This project will evaluate the extent of the challenges students face as well as students’ knowledge and use of available resources. It will also explore ways to coordinate existing intake processes on campus.

Social Capital Project
A lack of social capital can interfere with college success or make it hard for students to translate degrees into good jobs. This effort will help Tri-C faculty and staff better understand how work to with students to supply social capital.  All interventions will be piloted and evaluated prior to implementation.

Longitudinal Study
The goal of this project is to gather baseline data to help identify the pathways of under-resourced students and understand how they differ from the pathways of students with more resources.

Additional Resources

New Report Documents Student Needs

A new report from The Hope Center highlights the ongoing basic needs of nearly 86,000 students surveyed:

• 45% of respondents were food insecure in the prior 30 days
• 56 % of respondents were housing insecure in the previous year
• 17% of respondents were homeless in the previous year

College and University Basic Needs Insecurity

The Divide - A documentary

The Institute for Poverty and Urban Education urges you to check out The Divide, British filmmaker Katharine Round's critically acclaimed documentary about how wealth inequality is exacerbating poverty, corrupting politics and undermining the social well-being of people living in the world’s richest economies.

The Divide tells the story of seven individuals struggling to make ends meet and striving for a better life in the U.S. and the U.K.—two of the world’s most “advanced” countries, where the top 0.1 percent of the population now owns as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. It uncovers fascinating correlations between the relative level of inequality within any given society and the relative health, well-being and happiness of its people. 

The Divide is now available via the Kanopy streaming platform—a digital service that Tri-C students, staff and faculty can enjoy for free! Play it now or save it to your watchlist to view later.
 
Online Resources 

The Equality of Opportunity Project

Pathways to the Middle Class: Balancing Personal and Public Responsibilities (Brookings Institution)

How Ideology Distorts Americans’ Perceptions of Social Mobility (Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center)

Money Woes Extend Beyond Tuition (Inside Higher Ed)

It Is Expensive to Be Poor (The Atlantic)

Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart (The New York Times)

Why the Economic Fates of America’s Cities Diverged (The Atlantic)

To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider the Janitors at Two Top Companies, Then and Now (The New York Times)