April 7, 2014 | Read Time: 1 minute
The benefits of completing community college are significant. People with an associate degree earn, on average, $10,000 more each year than people who dropped out. But only one out of every four students who need to take remedial courses finishes his or her degree within six years.
The Robin Hood Foundation, an anti-poverty group in New York, is holding a $5-million competition for technology tools designed to help community-college students enrolled in remedial classes graduate within three years.
The winners of the competition will be determined in a three-year randomized, controlled trial of freshmen at City University of New York who are attending school full-time and need to take one or more remedial classes.
Robin Hood will accept submissions until June 30. In July, the organization will announce up to 20 semifinalists, who will receive financial support and assistance in honing their designs from Ideas42, a group of scholars who seek to use behavioral psychology and economics to solve social problems. Next January, Robin Hood will announce up to three finalists, who will again receive additional financial support and design assistance.
Testing of the finalists’ technology tools will begin at the start of the 2015-16 school year.
