Achieving a seamless path to a college degree and a better life for every California student—especially the low-income and brown and Black students who make up the majority of California’s youth—requires a systems change approach, pursued in partnership with educators, policymakers, employers, students, and civic leaders.

Our work focuses on interrelated areas that, together, can catalyze the transformation needed to ensure our education system equitably serves California’s diverse students now and into the future.

• Student-centric Practices: We support institutions working to become “equity-focused and student-ready” as they design their policies, practices, teaching, decision-making, and resource allocation around a core responsibility to ensure students accomplish their academic goals.

• Leadership: We support institutional leaders of color with the opportunity and capacity to successfully champion equitable B.A. completion within and across systems, transforming campus cultures and student experiences.

• Finance & Affordability: We partner with innovators, advocates, and policymakers who are working to transform the way we structure and resource higher education and student access—from reimagining higher education’s basic business model and system of finance to improving policy and practice around supports and resources for students—so that doors are open and degrees are affordable to all of California’s students.

• Policy: We identify and elevate promising, viable solutions that will smooth pathways and simplify access to robust supports, enabling students to access and complete an affordable education.