Dear Secretary Cardona and Director Tanden:

We write to thank you for your consistent support of the Postsecondary Student Success Grant program and urge you to include a significant increase in federal investment for the program in your Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) budget request. The undersigned organizations represent a broad and diverse coalition of education associations, civil rights groups, think tanks, researchers, and advocates with a shared interest in improving college graduation rates and closing equity gaps nationwide. We propose an investment of at least $200 million for Postsecondary Student Success Grants in FY25 to support evidence-based student success programs.

We strongly support your Administration’s ongoing efforts to bolster funding for evidence-based college retention and completion initiatives. Greater investment in FY25 will build on the bipartisan allocation of $45 million in the FY23 omnibus funding bill, the funding increase proposed in the FY24 President’s Budget request, and the bipartisan commitment to the program seen in the FY24 Senate Labor-HHS-Ed Appropriations bill. The program is currently supporting five competitive grant awards to improve student success at a Historically Black University and four other Minority-Serving Institutions, including the nation’s largest Hispanic-Serving Institution and several community and technical colleges. Now is the time to allocate additional vital resources to tackle our nation’s retention and completion challenges.

Expanding the Postsecondary Student Success Grant program will create more opportunities for institutions and students to benefit from evidence-based and promising models that provide comprehensive supports and have been demonstrated to improve graduation outcomes. Randomized controlled trials of several highly effective programs, including several that have been included in the What Works Clearinghouse, provide a robust array of approaches that can be adapted, replicated, and scaled across institutional contexts. The program’s commitment to data use and a tiered evidence model enables the development, implementation, and evaluation of emerging practices that expand the research base of strategies that help more students earn a postsecondary credential.

Addressing static college graduation rates and persistent, inequitable disparities in retention and completion will require sustained, targeted federal investment. We look forward to supporting your continued efforts to sustain the program and address these issues, and propose an investment of at least $200M for the Postsecondary Student Success Grant program in your FY25 budget.

Sincerely,

America Forward
American Federation of Teachers
Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU)
Complete College America
Data Quality Campaign
Higher Learning Advocates
InsideTrack
Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP)
National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs (NASSGAP)
New America Higher Education Program
Project QUEST
Results for America
State Higher Education Executive Officers Association
The City University of New York (CUNY ASAP|ACE)
The Education Trust
The Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS)
Third Way
UnidosUS