Our Work

College Closures Research and Policy Implications

SHEEO recently undertook a multiyear research endeavor to quantify the impacts of college closure on student persistence and completion. View the research and three corresponding reports.

State Higher Education Equity Funding Research

The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association’s (SHEEO) primary mission is to promote an environment that values higher education and its role in ensuring the equitable education of all Americans, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic factors. Central to that mission is equipping states with the skills and information to act when and where necessary. One area that presently requires attention and action is the analysis of equitable funding…

ASAP College Completion Coalition Learning Community

SHEEO is partnering with the City University of New York’s (CUNY) Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) Accelerate, Complete, and Engage (ACE) National Replication Collaborative to establish and launch a new learning community among state higher education leaders to replicate the CUNY ASAP|ACE model at scale to increase college completion rates within their community college sectors. Five states have been selected for $50,000 planning grants to facilitate their participation in…

State Transfer Policy Standards Project

Background States must adopt an equity-focused approach to transfer policies to address racial equity gaps and make progress toward attainment goals in postsecondary education. State higher education agencies should assess transfer performance based on race and income and establish standards for creating equitable transfer policies. Recognizing this need, the State Higher Education Executive Offers Association (SHEEO), in partnership with the John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education (Gardner…

State Authorization Surveys

From 2011 to 2018, SHEEO provided a directory of agencies and individuals responsible for implementing state postsecondary quality assurance laws in the 50 U.S. States, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, as well as a compendium of state laws and regulations. This role has been turned over to NC-SARA.

State Postsecondary Attainment Academy

The Attainment Academy is a collaboration between SHEEO and Education Strategy Group (ESG) to support states’ efforts to achieve attainment goals.

Adult Promise

SHEEO is working with 15 states to design and implement promise-type financial aid programs geared toward adult learners over the age of 25.

Digital Credentials in Post-Secondary Education

SHEEO launched the Digital Credentials in Post-Secondary Education, in collaboration with Reach University and the Indiana Commission for Higher Education, to advance the integration of measurable skills into digital credentials. This project aims to promote skills-based credentialing for high-demand occupations, thereby aligning the labor force participation gap between potential workers and employers seeking talent. As a leader in the digital credential movement, Indiana served as a single-state pilot to explore…

Project Pipeline Repair: Restoring Minority Male Participation and Persistence in Educator Preparation Programs

Project Pipeline Repair is a collaboration among four state agencies and one selected historically black college and university (HBCU) in their respective states.  It seeks to address persistent shortages and lack of diversity in the education profession.

Capacity Building Grant

Support for SHEEO to reevaluate its approach to fulfilling its mission within a changing national policy context.

Public Investment in Higher Education: Research, Strategies, and Policy Implications

SHEEO undertook a systematic review of the research on the effects of public spending on student outcomes and coordinated an eight-week webinar series in which new original research was presented.

Direct Admissions

The college application and admissions process continues to serve as a barrier to equitable college access. College applicants face a gauntlet of unclear and uneven information points, multiple steps toward preparation, varying application and admission requirements, and administrative hurdles—all of which rely heavily upon social and cultural capital. Previous interventions that simplified or removed barriers to college search and choice reduced these frictions and increased the likelihood of college application…

Postsecondary Data Partnership Assistance to Community Colleges

This project increases the capacity of Jobs for the Future Student Success Centers and their participating colleges to use data from the Postsecondary Data Partnership to improve student success.

Quality Assurance and Improvement

SHEEO, in collaboration with the National Association of System Heads (NASH), conducted an environmental scan of the existing landscape of approaches utilized to assess and assure the quality of higher education institutions and higher education credentials at the state level.