• Project: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation / Declining college enrollments study

• Length: Since our founding in 2008

• Focus Area: Market + Policy Research

• Category: Postsecondary

We partnered with EDGE Research for the Gates Foundation to ask over 1600 high school graduates in seven states (California, Florida, New York, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington), why they are opting out of college.

• Project: Alliance of Regional Rural Colleges (ARRC)

• Length: 2021 - present

• Focus Area: Strategic Advice and Counsel

• Category: Postsecondary

HCM Strategists provided strategic advice and counsel to ARRC, a new advocacy and research organization that’s challenging Capitol Hill leaders to rethink how they evaluate and fund rural and regional colleges.

• Project: TransferBOOST

• Length: 2020 - present

• Focus Area: Support Change Management Strategies

• Category: Postsecondary

For every 100 students who enroll in community colleges, 31 students transfer to a four-year institution. Of those, only 14 complete a bachelor’s degree within six years. Too many students are derailed from their higher education goals by unexpected, unaffordable, and untenable—yet solvable—challenges along their transfer journey.

• Project: Lumina Foundation / Strategy Labs

• Length: 2010 - present

• Focus Area: Design, Implement and Assess Evidence-based Policy Agendas

• Category: Postsecondary

Since 2010, Lumina Foundation has drawn upon the state policy team at HCM Strategists to manage Strategy Labs initiatives and offer non-partisan content expertise and facilitation aligned with Lumina’s state policy agenda to increase attainment and close equity gaps.

• Project: Promising Policy

• Length: 2018 - 2019

• Focus Area: Market + Policy Research and Analysis, Designing, Evaluating and Implementing Policy Agendas, Strategic Communications, Campaigns and Coalitions

• Category: Postsecondary

HCM Strategists’ mission is to inform the development, adoption and refinement of impactful policies that make a difference in advancing equitable student outcomes. We launched the Promising Policy series to offer materials that highlight good policy and to examine the differences between impactful, lasting policies and those that fail to deliver on their promises.

• Project: Realizing Black Learner Excellence in Higher Ed

• Length: 2021 - Present

• Focus Area: Market + Policy Research and Analysis, Designing, Evaluating and Implementing Policy Agendas, Strategic Communications, Campaigns and Coalitions

• Category: Postsecondary

Together with EducationCounsel, Achieving the Dream, and with support from Lumina Foundation, HCM Strategists is building a coalition to enact a national call to action that addresses decades-long declining enrollments among Black learners.

• Project: Tackling Transfer Initiative

• Length: 2018 - 2021

• Focus Area: Change Management Strategies

• Category: Postsecondary

HCM Strategists spearheaded the Tackling Transfer Initiative to create conditions for improvements in community college transfer that are scalable and measurable to achieve greater equity for students from low-income households and students of color.

• Project: American Dream 2.0 Coalition

• Length: 2012-2014

• Focus Area: Strategic Communications, Campaigns + Coalitions, Designing, Evaluating and Implementing Policy Agendas

• Category: Postsecondary

HCM established and led an unprecedented coalition to address how financial aid can play a role in advancing the American Dream, comprised of diverse national leadership—college and foundation presidents; civil rights leaders; top state policymakers; student activists; former budget and higher education officials; college access advocates; business leaders; and the nation’s foremost authorities on financial aid.

• Project: Project APPLY

• Length: 2020

• Focus Area: Strategic Communications, Campaigns + Coalitions

• Category: Postsecondary

HCM Strategists and Kinetic Seeds created Project APPLY, a content series to enliven a national conversation around how today’s students and workers experience learning after high school.

• Project: Context for Success

• Length: 2010 - 2012

• Focus Area: Market + Policy Research and Analysis, Strategic Communications, Campaigns + Coalitions

• Category: Postsecondary

Commissioned by HCM Strategists, Context for Success identified challenges in current methods of evaluating postsecondary education and sought ideas grounded in research that would have practical benefits in the higher education policy world.

• Project: Connecting Learning and Work: Analyzing Middle Skills

• Length: Ongoing

• Focus Area: Market and Policy Research + Analysis

• Category: Postsecondary

HCM recognized the need to better understand the policy around skills development–both middle and high skills–that better support workers through alternative pathways in education, on-the-job-training and other programs to increase economic mobility.

• Project: HCM Outcomes-Based Funding Framework

• Length: Ongoing

• Focus Area: Strategic Advice + Counsel, Market and Policy Research + Analysis, Designing, Evaluating and Implementing Policy Agendas

• Category: Postsecondary

A thought leader with deep experience in tracking, analyzing and working with states to improve state postsecondary policy, HCM Strategists has developed an unparalleled understanding of the state postsecondary policy and funding landscape.

• Project: HCM Strategic Planning

• Length: Ongoing

• Focus Area: Strategic Advice and Counsel

• Category: Postsecondary

HCM’s strategic planning brings a keen awareness of the external political and economic environment; research and best practice; and the central role of equity, diversity and inclusion that informs effective leadership.

• Project: HCM Equity Framework

• Length: Ongoing

• Focus Area: Strategic Advice and Counsel

• Category: Postsecondary

HCM believes state, system, institutional and community-based equity-minded leadership is needed to identify and eliminate postsecondary educational disparities that exist pervasively across racial, ethnic, income, geographic and gender lines.

• Project: Reimagining Aid Design and Delivery (RADD)

• Length: 2013 - 2017

• Focus Area: Designing + Implementing Policy Agendas

• Category: Postsecondary

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Reimagining Aid Design and Delivery (RADD) initiative yielded important policy and seeded collaboration around federal financial aid improvement options.

For over 12 years, HCM has worked across several states to transform the higher education financing model.

HCM Strategists created the Courage and Hidden Common Ground Collaborative to help state-based organizations find common ground and amplify public support for equity-centered policies in support of higher education initiatives