Strada collaborates with students, policymakers, educators, and employers across the U.S. to strengthen the link between education and opportunity.
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We prioritize policies, practices, and programs that help ensure postsecondary education provides equitable pathways to opportunity.
We advance our mission through research, grantmaking, social impact investments, public policy solutions, Strada-supported nonprofit organizations, and strategic initiatives.
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Studying graduates’ experiences and attitudes provides education leaders with insights about ways they can design programs and initiatives focused on maximizing the student experience.
The 2018 Strada-Gallup Alumni Survey, formerly part of the Gallup-Purdue Index, explores how colleges and universities inspire students to achieve and looks closely at the source and nature of college mentoring relationships. This nationally representative study of U.S. college graduates examines whether graduates received career-related advice during college, as well as the helpfulness of the guidance they received.
Professors are the predominant source of undergraduate mentorship
First-generation college student (FGCS) and minority graduates who had a mentor are less likely than their counterparts to identify their mentor as a professor.
Graduates’ professor mentors were most likely to come from an arts and humanities field.
Recent research demonstrates the importance of faculty and staff members’ involvement in career-related conversations with students. The 2017 Strada-Gallup College Student Survey showed that students who had these types of conversations are more likely than other students to feel confident about their future upon graduation.
The ultimate measure of a postsecondary institution’s success is whether its alumni succeed in work and life. Measuring and reporting these outcomes are becoming expected responsibilities of colleges and universities to ensure they are living up to the ideals embodied in their mission statements.
Strada Education Network is committed to listening to the learner voice of all students, including graduates and non-completers, so we have expanded our partnership with Gallup to include serving as the lead partner on the Strada-Gallup Alumni Survey, formerly the Gallup-Purdue Index.
The Strada-Gallup Alumni Survey has served as a unique, informative resource for countless higher education institutions as they strive to learn more about the outcomes of their graduates. The Alumni Survey enables institutions to understand:
Learners have a savvy understanding of their post-secondary experiences as they relate to their careers. Survey results show that U.S. adults are overwhelmingly pursuing post-secondary education to advance their careers in some way.
We look forward to finding ways to partner with higher education providers through the Strada-Gallup Alumni Survey to better understand alumni experiences and benefit all students as they work to attain their education and career goals.
Through the Strada-Gallup Alumni Survey, we can provide custom analytics and reporting to colleges and universities, including alumni in-depth qualitative interviews, with the unique ability to benchmark against a nationally representative study of 60,000 college graduates. Institutions can compare their graduates against select cohorts, such as Carnegie Classifications, athletic divisions or other institutions in their state.
When it comes to education after high school, Americans know what they value and why. At Strada Education Network, we are listening to what they have to say and leveraging their insights about experiences and outcomes to forge more purposeful pathways between education and careers.
Gallup strategically partners with institutions to conduct custom research and implement best practices that create environments in which students and employees thrive.
Strada’s newest report, Building Better Internships, looks at the latest findings from the National Survey of College Internships (NSCI), a survey developed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions.
The State Opportunity Index was developed to help states build a stronger connection between education after high school and equitable pathways to opportunity so students realize the full value of their education and employers have the workforce they need to fill high-demand jobs.
New research highlights what states and institutions can do to help more graduates secure college-level jobs.
To better understand the value community colleges provide to individuals and communities, we need to acknowledge the range of needs they serve.
A wide range of experiences prepare students for success beyond the completion of their college degree. The evidence for the value of interning on students' future careers is strong.
In an era of student enrollment declines, tight labor markets, rising college costs, and a growing lack of confidence in the value of a postsecondary education, community colleges and employers have ample reasons to partner together.
Partnerships between community colleges and employers have the opportunity to address local and regional economic needs through a range of tools, including supporting student success through resources and services, integrating work-based learning, and building career pathways.
The list of benefits associated with earning a college degree is extensive and oft-repeated. It includes higher average lifetime earnings, employment security, greater self-esteem, and better health, among many others.
Amid all of this disruption, the number of U.S. workers leaving or changing their jobs sharply increased. Known variously as the Great Resignation, Reshuffle, or Realignment, the trend has been cast in the cultural imagination as a collective desire on the part of the American workforce for more rewarding or meaningful work.
Over the past 80 years, our nation has made great strides in improving access to college, and then ensuring that many more students could complete a college degree.
Spring 2022 enrollment numbers from the National Student Clearinghouse reveal a fifth straight semester of enrollment declines, with more than 1 million fewer students enrolled compared to spring 2020
Higher education’s measurement of student success is in the midst of an evolution. For nearly five decades, success efforts focused on access, then two decades with completion as the horizon for success, and now the focus is extending to student outcomes beyond completion.
Applied connections between education and work are increasingly a part of undergraduate education in the United States.
Two centuries after the first historically Black colleges and universities were founded, the 101 accredited HBCUs in operation today continue to deliver on their legacy of expanding educational opportunity for Black students that leads to successful and fulfilling lives.
As a field, higher education has experienced a continuing evolution in how to measure success. For nearly five decades success efforts were focused on access, followed by the past decade and a half pursuing completion, and the field now has a growing focus on the value of a degree and student outcomes beyond completion.
Strada’s prior research on undergraduate perceptions of the value of their education demonstrates that students value their education most when they receive support to connect their education and career interests.
In the wake of historic pandemic-related enrollment declines, postsecondary institutions have responded by developing and expanding innovative approaches to engaging learners.
The baccalaureate degree remains the surest path to economic mobility, employment stability, and a host of associated social benefits.
Steep declines in undergraduate enrollment during 2020 and 2021 threaten to widen existing equity gaps in college completion and career opportunities.
Nondegree credentials have been growing rapidly for decades. During the COVID-19 economic crisis, interest in nondegree credentials and skills training options was especially high. Questions about their quality and value, however, remain.
The high school classes of 2020 and 2021 have endured massive disruption to their education.
From its onset in early 2020, the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has upended life across the world, leading to uncertainty around health, work, finances, education, and a host of other issues.
The pandemic has led to a national crisis of widespread disruption to both work and education for millions of adults in the U.S., especially those from historically marginalized groups.
We asked alumni nationwide who had borrowed money to go to school if their loans were worth it. Strada Education Network and Gallup surveyed a nationally representative sample of more than 6,000 student loan holders.
Our mission is to improve lives by forging clearer and more purposeful pathways between education and employment.