Access is not enough. We need to focus on student success.
The vast majority of postsecondary students are looking for engaging and relevant courses that improve their career options and increase their earnings. But for many learners, rising educational costs, barriers to access, and a lack of job-aligned courses stand in their way.
Research shows that postsecondary education is the key to economic mobility and sustainability.
There is growing consensus that technology-enabled, career-aligned courses and hybrid modalities are the future of education, especially to expand reach to underserved students. But questions remain about how to ensure quality, how to balance in-person and online instruction, how to bridge pathways from high school to postsecondary to work, and how to make sure students complete their education goals.
-
Recent studies show that, in the wake of Covid, students prefer online and hybrid learning—and the pandemic provided a real-world laboratory for new, innovative learning models. But cost pressures and resourcing realities are making it hard for many 2- and 4-year institutions to adjust to these new learning modalities. Meanwhile, advances in technology and teaching pedagogy are making it possible to scale the kinds of support needed to help students persist and succeed in course pathways that lead to strong jobs. Together, we believe this heralds a critical inflection point—and unique opportunity—for students and the organizations who serve them.
There’s a gap between the development of educational technologies and their adoption by the postsecondary institutions who might use them best.
At Axim Collaborative, we start with the needs of students at broad access institutions.
We create and support partnerships that can dramatically advance digital education transformation to help students historically marginalized and underserved by the educational system improve their graduation rates and find jobs with strong earning growth potential.
-
These learners are resilient, talented, and determined but many face barriers in pursuing their educational goals, balancing their education with work and other responsibilities. They often attend community colleges and public 4-year institutions who have deep ties to their communities and offer more affordable tuition. By forming innovative partnerships with these broad access institutions, we’re working to build upon their deep expertise and extend their resources, to reach more students through hybrid courses and digital education technologies, and to provide support that helps more students persist in their studies and connect to meaningful employment.
Axim focuses on driving change in three interconnected areas of innovation.
We’re making strategic bets on educational technologies and practices that open pathways to better education and career outcomes—and target the specific barriers that learners face along the way.
Engage
Expanding access to relevant, high quality courses and programs of study by advancing pedagogical best practices, expanding delivery modalities, and bridging broken pathways.
Enable
Strengthening academic and cohort supports for students with strategies that foster a sense of community and belonging to enable persistence through completion.
Excel
Empowering students to see themselves in a future career by aligning courses, competencies, credentials, and experiences that connect to employment opportunities.
ASU Local × Southwestern Community College District
A hyperlocal pathway for postsecondary success
UNCF × Harvard Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning