The College Success Grant program is composed of three subcategories of grants designed to help colleges implement, improve, and/or scale promising reforms of policy and practice associated with decreased time to credential, increased student persistence, improved completion rates for all learners and the elimination of equity gaps.
“Amplify” grant funds are designed for institutions seeking $100,000-200,000 to strengthen an already successfully implemented intervention that would benefit from a rapid infusion of funds or to sustainably scale up an intervention or improvement approach that has proven successful.
“Accelerate” grant funds are designed for institutions seeking $200,000-650,000 to implement, improve, or expand promising practices and evidence-based reforms that build on or align to a broader institutional student success strategy.
“Go Big” grant funds are designed for institutions seeking $600,000-1,000,000 to scale evidence-based improvements aligned to a coherent institutional student success strategy and theory of change.
Cycle 1
Diploma Equity Project (in support of Mott Community College and Oakland University)
Amount: $942,000 (“Go Big” Grant)
Project Summary:
Diploma Equity Project’s proposal supports redesigned student support systems at scale at Oakland University (OU) and Mott Community College (MCC) to increase degree completion rates. Each institution has been engaged in an intensive process built around student voice to design a student support system built on best practices in advising, coaching, and student support; early alert systems; and other high-touch supports. At MCC, the goal is to grow adult four-year associate and certificate complete rates from 23% to 45%, and at OU, the goal is to grow six-year bachelor’s degree completion for first-generation students from 47% to 65%. The funding will be used to support a construction manager who will be responsible for implementing the respective design at each college, to have that design operational in 18-24 months, and to be able to sustain the new model without external subsidy.
Michigan State University
Amount: $996,000 (“Go Big” Grant)
Project Summary:
Michigan State University (MSU) aims to increase the number of students who see community college as a successful and affordable path to a four-year degree, transfer to a four-year institution, and earn their bachelor’s degrees. MSU will increase transfer credit awarded by expanding Credit for Prior Learning, creating Academic Maps, and improving credit evaluation. MSU will collaborate with community colleges to expand their Envision Green program (a partnership with Lansing Community College), a redesign MSU into a transfer ready institution by reforming policies and practices and creating a transfer student success center. These actions will minimize credit loss and smoot the path to four-year degree completion for Michigan’s community college students.
Schoolcraft College
Amount: $200,000 (“Amplify” Grant)
Project Summary:
Schoolcraft College’s proposal will expand and enhance its Early Action program to support a proactive approach to meeting students needs. Schoolcraft will develop a student inventory survey to deploy early in each semester to help identify need for intervention—both to increase use of academic supports, and to help meet students’ basic needs. This will be complemented by a communications effort to destigmatize and encourage the seeking of early support, and strengthen the case management approach to responding to student needs.
Cycle 2
Gogebic Community College
Amount: $93,130
Project Summary:
Grant funds will cover the cost of updating technology and taking a deep dive into advising through robust professional development to better support the Network and students. This includes the addition of a retention management system leveraging our existing Student Information System. The GCC Network system of intervention is broken into 2-4-6-8-10 week intervals for a 16 week semester. By updating our technology advisors will be able to spend more time with actual interventions. We are committed to leveraging this new resource of time by expanding and enhancing our interventions. For example, the time may be used for a week four campus campaign around week four interventions. These could include, and are not limited to, hosting study tables, providing meals and making phone calls. By providing multiple layers of professional development, we will ensure the interventions result in student success, retention and persistence.
Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College
Amount: $997,872
Project Summary:
Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College (KBOCC) aims to empower Tribal and surrounding communities through education and cultural preservation, focusing on preparing students for careers in STEM fields like nursing, health sciences, and environmental science. As a rural Tribal Community College, many of our students are from underserved populations underrepresented in STEM. Our campus faces space limitations and outdated infrastructure, hindering our ability to meet growing student needs in science and technology. This proposal seeks funding to renovate and expand our science labs and technology facilities, enhancing institutional capacity and enriching students' educational experience. These upgrades will optimize high impact practices and learning environments, boost success in STEM courses, and equip our students to excel academically and succeed in their future careers.
Michigan State University
Amount: $199,134
Project Summary:
Our President has described a vision for one MSU with greater alignment of courses and degrees with Michigan's future needs. Reform efforts in undergraduate student learning, including academic program review, creation of a co-curricular record, and publishing curricular guides in housing encourage us to re-craft MSU's university learning goals within our newly adopted framework for holistic student success. With a few resources and widespread engagement with stakeholders, we can help MSU meet the needs of students over the next decade by scaling quality high impact practices and amplifying teaching, learning and curricula reform. Aligning and connecting curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular programs will create a more cohesive and equitable student experience, accelerating MSU toward its strategic goal of becoming both a more accessible and equitable institution.
Michigan Tech University
Amount: $650,000
Project Summary:
First-year students often struggle with adjustments to college life. Indeed, mental health and academic performance account for most student withdrawals from Michigan Tech. While not all of these withdrawals can be prevented, many students tell us that they were unaware of or unwilling to access the wide array of campus support services that might have allowed them to persist.
The new first-year Michigan Tech Seminar will help students map their college path, form essential habits and mindsets for academic success, and build a sense of community and belonging at Michigan Tech, thereby increasing retention and graduation rates, especially among at-risk student populations. We will scale up and sustain our capacity for targeted professional development and for broader dissemination of the Seminar modules and instruction workshops through professionally-designed open education videos.
Mid Michigan College
Amount: $305,750
Project Summary:
According to MISchoolData, only 53% of Michigan high school graduates enrolled in postsecondary education within six months of graduating. This figure is significantly lower in many districts served by Mid Michigan College. To address this, Mid is incorporating elements of the Dual Enrollment Equity Pathways (DEEP) model developed by researchers at Columbia University to build a holistic program focusing on outreach to underserved students, alignment to specific careers of interest, early career and academic exploration, advising, and planning, and high-quality academic instruction and academic support.
Cycle 3
Bay College
Award: $1,000,000.00
Project Summary:
Bay College will use the College Success grant to transform the student experience with enhanced student support coaching, credit for prior learning opportunities, flexible programming, strengthened career services and scaled employer partnerships to improve career pathways, retention, and graduation rates for students.
Delta College
Award: $826,739.00
Project Summary:
Delta College is committed to expanding equitable access to post-secondary education through evidence-based improvements in its dual enrollment programs. This project focuses on scaling the Dual Enrollment Equity Pathways (DEEP) initiative to serve more students, while aligning with a coherent student success strategy. By scaling the DEEP initiative, Delta College aims to increase dual enrollment participation, while increasing retention and completion rates. This project is evidence-based and driven by a theory of change that positions dual enrollment as a critical lever for student success, creating equitable pathways that close achievement gaps and foster a sustainable college going culture.
The DEEP model integrates comprehensive academic advising, mentorship, and wrap-around services to support dual-enrolled students, ensuring they are on clear pathways toward both high school graduation and post-secondary success. By expanding the number of success coaches and tutors, Delta College will provide personalized guidance and academic support to students, helping them navigate their educational and career goals. A key feature of this project is the alignment of dual enrollment courses with Delta College degree programs and career pathways, which will help students see the relevance of their coursework in relation to future careers. The project will also offer financial literacy workshops and job placement opportunities, bridging the gap between academic success and career readiness.
Ferris State University
Award: $457,380.00
Project Summary:
Building upon the Quick Start Grant that Ferris State University received which completed a comprehensive program study of academic advising, Ferris will use the College Success Grant to create the Ferris Center for Advising Advancement (FCAA) with a three-tiered set of initiatives to enhance academic advising practices, improving support for students and increasing persistence and graduation rates. The first set of initiatives prioritizes engagement communications through improved processes and defined standards for operationalizing enhanced connection with students. Included in this work are process maps, annualized communication plans and templates. The second set of initiatives involves the creation of a comprehensive professional development plan and virtual clearinghouse of resourcing. Included in this initiative is the development of an onboarding, mentoring, and ongoing learning series available through a learning module. These initiatives aim to support new advisors upon hire and onboarding and then extend throughout their ongoing career development. Inherent in this work is emphasis on improved quality assurance regardless of advisor or specific program of study and the associated curricula. The third set of initiatives focus on the development of a culture of assessment. Specifically, this work engages faculty and staff through an assessment institute designed to articulate (a) a clear mission, (b) vision, and (c) measurable student learning outcomes to enable a sustainable assessment process, and continual learning development.
Grand Valley State University
Award: $999,992.00
Project Summary:
As a focused intervention to support educational equity, this project will build an evidence-based first-year experience for students who are first-generation, Pell eligible and from a community offering a Promise program or a GVSU sponsored charter school. Students will enroll in a first-year seminar course linked with academic courses to form powerful learning communities. Peer mentors will be embedded in the curriculum and meet with students outside of class. To build campus culture supporting the needs of our changing populations, professional development opportunities will be created for advisors, faculty, and staff. Learnings from these efforts will result in a model for supporting students in developing a commitment to college completion through goal setting, self-efficacy, and planning; the model and tools will be made available to other Michigan colleges and universities.
Lansing Community College
Award: $650,000.00
Project Summary:
Nationally, community college students enter higher education underprepared for college level math. In the last decade, higher ed institutions implemented a developmental education model that marginally improved completion but did not include soft skills development or access to support critical student success. In response, LCC’s math program has developed an embedded support model, the Readiness Project, for students entering LCC with elementary school math levels, who are historically least likely to graduate. The project has three phases. Phase 1 restructures traditional pedagogic instructional approaches to provide students with wholistic academic and non-academic supports in the same setting. Phase 2 embeds this in all math co-support courses, increasing students reached from 75 to over 700 annually. Phase 3 connects students with LCC career paths and local employers.
Macomb Community College
Award: $789,355.00
Project Summary:
Macomb Community College will use the College Success grant to scale academic support as part of its student success strategy. Supplemental instruction will be available in 125 course sections and subject matter tutoring will be expanded to accommodate increased student requests for tutoring in a broader range of subjects through this project.
Muskegon Community College
Award: $582,500.00
Project Summary:
Muskegon Community College (MCC) aims to improve the persistence/success of adult learners. About 200+ new adults enroll annually. Total annual enrollment of new and continuing adults is 1500 (28% of all students). Only 37% persist from fall to fall. Only 13% complete or transfer in 3 years. Adult learner focus groups and process mapping of onboarding from our Quick Start grant confirm that policies/practices and lack of robust credit for prior learning are major contributors to these outcomes. MCC must do more to change and improve the student experience by making basic infrastructure changes in admissions, registration, career advising, financial aid, orientation, support services, and credit for prior learning. This College Success grant has three action strategies: (1) change college policies/practices to meet adult learner needs, (2) build out credit for prior learning options, and (3) grow navigator capacity for adult learners.
North Central Michigan College
Award: $200,000.00
Project Summary:
North Central Michigan College (NCMC) will use the College Success grant to build and expand mental health services for enrolled students. It is our goal to provide more comprehensive care including crisis management and psychiatry services to our students.
Northern Michigan University
Award: $600,000.00
Project Summary:
The Strengthening Pathways North (SPN) initiative will transform Northern Michigan University (NMU) into a Native-centered thinking institution to Strengthen Native American student self-efficacy, sense of belonging, and wellbeing to counter disparity in graduation rates. The American Indian College Fund reports that 14% of Native American adults have earned a bachelor’s degree as opposed to 30.3% of the overall US population. Led by Northern Michigan University executives, faculty, and staff, and informed by NMU AIAN student input, the SPN will meet NMU’s obligation to fortify AIAN student success and graduation. The SPN will work to 1) increase the retention rates of AIAN students and subsequently, increase the percentage of AIAN graduates, 2) identify and remove barriers in order to increase the number of opportunities for AIAN students to engage in high impact practices, and 3) increase the number of Native-centric activities that foster health and wellbeing to attract new AIAN students and improve retention of current AIAN students. The SPN is designed over three phases to foster a building block approach towards sustainability.
Oakland Community College
Award: $400,000.00
Project Summary:
Empowering students to succeed drives all we do at Oakland Community College (OCC). This core tenet serves as our foundation for the college’s Strategic Plan. OCC’s primary strategic goal is to double the graduation rate and to help students realize the economic and life benefits of an earned college credential. Our College Success Accelerate grant project will focus on increasing student success and completion through early credit momentum, gateway course completion, and retention equity as crucial leading indicators toward increasing graduation and student goal attainment. We will achieve these goals through academic innovation and curricular redesign, service excellence training, and scaled proactive outreach through technological integration.
OCC enrolls over 20,000 students annually across its five campuses and online offerings. The scale of our student community brings with it the potential to significantly advance the postsecondary attainment of our county and region. However, that scale can also mean that students do not always receive the level of individual care and guidance we want them to have to support their success and completion. The strategies of our grant address this through an innovation in course delivery and services. They personalize the student experience and grow institutional empathy, by combining work on college culture with course design and delivery, frameworks to advance student service excellence, and the optimization of technology tools that grow a continuum of care for the students we serve.
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
Award: $650,000.00
Project Summary:
Overall academic success at the University of Michigan (U-M) is strong, but not all students are equally well-served by our existing structures. We seek to address institutional shortcomings by prioritizing equity in our practices while centering the abilities of students from underserved groups. We know that academic advising is a key component in this endeavor, especially when informed by methods that are proactive and validating. We want to improve the quality of advising on our campus rooted in robust training and development programs informed by validation theory. We also want to extend this training beyond the ranks of advisors to include academic coaches, peer tutors, and instructional faculty with the ultimate goal of growing a validation ecosystem across units and roles that contribute to a culture of student success and institutional equity.
Cycle 4
Bay Mills Community College
Amount: $399,162.00
Project Summary:
Bay Mills Community College (BMCC), a tribally controlled college located on the Bay Mills Indian Community, has documented the need for health care professionals to serve this and surrounding communities. This initiative will serve to increase nursing education opportunities for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds, particularly those serving tribal communities. The grant initiative will support those students who wish to pursue a Bachelor of Science in nursing, through either of two paths—completion of the LPN certificate then transferring to Lake Superior State University (LSSU) for the BSN or completion of the Associate of Health Science and then transferring to LSSU for the BSN. BMCC and LSSU have entered a collaborative articulation agreement intended for students seeking a Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Lake Superior State University. We also wish to support those students pursuing an LPN degree only at BMCC.
The Healthcare Pathways Program has been recognized by the Michigan Health Council as an innovative collaborative community effort to address regional healthcare shortages and create lasting solutions. By fostering a strong connection between students, educators, and employers, the Healthcare Pathways Consortium is helping to create and retain a sustainable healthcare workforce in Michigan’s Eastern Upper Peninsula.
Central Michigan University
Amount: $650,000.00
Project Summary:
Central Michigan University (CMU) is partnering with 4 community college partners to expand Central Bound (CB), a dual admission/co-enrollment initiative that transforms the transfer experience for students. Inspired by Oregon State University’s Degree Partnership Program, and prototyped with Lansing Community College, Central Bound creates a fully integrated, student-centered partnership between CMU and community colleges. The Central Bound expansion focuses on community colleges in counties without a four-year public university, offering place-bound students supported pathways to a bachelor’s degree without leaving their communities.
As a dual admission/co-enrollment program, Central Bound allows students to be simultaneously admitted to both institutions, taking courses at either while receiving coordinated support services. More than a transfer pathway, CB represents a shared commitment to joint responsibility for student success from community college enrollment through bachelor’s degree completion. The program aligns admissions, enrollment, financial aid, academic advising, and credit evaluation into one seamless system. It includes collaboratively developed program maps to ensure all applicable credits transfer and count toward degrees, including reverse transfer options. CMU and its partners are targeting the top five high-demand transfer majors based on regional labor market needs, preparing students for strong employment outcomes. CB also establishes a transfer affirming culture by including joint advising, early financial aid counseling, proactive advising, and immediate access to CMU resources, thus fostering student belonging and confidence.
Eastern Michigan University
Amount: $300,000
Project Summary:
Eastern Michigan University (EMU) plans to use the grant to institutionalize two systems and processes across the University to support retention and transfer credit mobility:
- EMU will develop a university-wide system for prior learning assessment (PLA) to increase credential attainment and reduce time to completion particularly for “non-traditional” students and military veteran students, and also explore professional certification and licensures appropriate for PLA.
- EMU will accelerate credential attainment for transfer students by integrating our systems that track community college articulation agreement and prior academic credits.
This project focuses on EMU’s unique student population, integrates and expands existing systems, are rooted in best practices, and were identified as priorities during EMU’s student success summit in July 2024.
Kalamazoo Valley Community College
Amount: $350,000
Project Summary:
Kalamazoo Valley Community College will implement a comprehensive, student-centered scheduling system to transform how courses and services are delivered to adult learners and historically underserved students. Building on the foundation established through our Quick Start Student Success grant, this initiative addresses critical barriers that prevent students from completing their educational goals.
Currently, course schedules are built using historical enrollment patterns and faculty preferences rather than analyzing when students actually need courses. This approach creates inflexible offerings that conflict with work schedules and family obligations, forcing 30% of students to delay progress and contributing to 25% of course withdrawals. Adult learners particularly struggle with rigid daytime schedules that ignore employment demands and childcare responsibilities.
This grant project will implement Ad Astra’s algorithm-based scheduling technology, redesign internal procedures prioritize student availability data, optimize course modalities and times based on actual student needs, refine academic pathway maps, and create accelerated course combinations for high-demand fields like Business, Computer Information Systems, and Electrical Technologies. Comprehensive professional development will support faculty and staff in adopting student-centered practices and utilizing data for decision-making. The initiative is identified as Key Performance Indicator #1 in Kalamazoo Valley’s Strategic Plan. Students will experience accessible course options aligned with their life circumstances, clearer pathways to credentials, and enhanced support services. The project particularly benefits working adults, first-generation students, and those with family obligations.
Lake Michigan College
Amount: $650,000.00
Project Summary:
The Student Success Center is a transformative initiative designed to centralize and expand support services for students, with a focus on equity, access, and improved outcomes. This comprehensive project will integrate academic advising, success coaching, wellness services, basic needs insecurity supports, and digital literacy and online learning readiness into one coordinated, student-centered hub.
The project responds to longstanding challenges identified through qualitative and quantitative data, including fragmented services, high advising caseloads, inconsistent student support experiences, and equity gaps in retention and completion. Internal data, including student surveys and focus groups, CARE Team insights, and stop-out, retention, and completion reports, consistently show that students often struggle with access to or awareness of available help, lack a clear academic or career plan, and feel disconnected from institutional resources. These findings underscore the urgent need for targeted intervention to improve student engagement, planning, and success. By creating a unified Student Success Center, the college will reduce confusion, eliminate service silos and duplication, and proactively connect students to the right level of support at the right time. A formalized student success scoring system will guide tiered advising and coaching caseloads, ensuring personalized support that adopts to student needs.
This project closely aligns with the college’s strategic priorities of Academic Excellence and Student Success and reflects strong cross-departmental collaboration and institutional leadership. The Student Success Center will serve as a scalable, sustainable model for how holistic student support can drive equity, retention, and completion at the community college level.
Lake Superior State University
Amount: $505,000.00
Project Summary:
The College Success Project at Lake Superior State University is a transformative, campus-wide initiative aimed at improving first-year student success. Grounded in recent institutional assessments and national best practices, the project enhances student onboarding through advising, university seminar instruction, and strengthening the student support infrastructure through professional development. Key components include expanded faculty and staff professional development focused on inclusive teaching and cultural competency, the standardization and improvement of first year seminar courses, and the creation of a more holistic advising model led by trained faculty. By aligning these efforts with LSSU’s strategic goals and evidence from ongoing assessment from the campus community, the proposed project ensures that all students receive consistent and coordinated support during the critical first year. Through a focus on building institutional capacity through professional development opportunities and embedding sustainable practices in course design and advising support, the College Success Project positions LSSU to foster belonging and improve long term student outcomes.
Michigan Association of State Universities
Amount: $255,000.00
Project Summary:
This two year grant project will directly support Michigan’s 15 public universities as member institutions of the Michigan Association of State Universities. Technical assistance funding through the grant will help the campuses be prepared to use the National Student Clearinghouse’s Reverse Transfer Tool (RTT). A part time MASU contractor will assume oversight of the RTT deployment and convene and train faculty on reverse transfer processes, bringing to scale a major advancement in community college to public university transfer.
Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College
Amount: $649,968.00
Project Summary:
This grant will allow the Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College (SCTC) to transform its Writing Center into a Student Success Center and expand the Learning Assistant program. The Student Success Center expansion will allow supports for students in the areas of math, English and science and will ensure that the holistic student approach is utilized. The grant will also allow SCTC to offer a Summer Bridge program for students testing into developmental level courses. Data has indicated the need for additional assistance within the mathematics and science courses specifically. To help meet student demands and address the classes that pose challenges, SCTC is aiming to expand the number of Learning Assistants available. This will also help SCTC fulfill a goal in its strategic plan to increase retention and completion rates through the expansion of Learning Assistants and Student Success Center services. Additionally, SCTC will be joining the MCAN Gateway Course Redesign, with the first focus being the science curriculum. This opportunity will allow for the redesign of the biology course and potentially lead to a new certificate program.
Washtenaw Community College
Amount: $200,000.00
Project Summary:
High textbook costs are a problem. Multiple studies show that students forgo purchasing required textbooks, take fewer courses, and are more likely to not register for or to drop a course due to high textbook costs. Students not having access to required course texts is a significant barrier to student success and persistence.
Open Educational Resources (OER) can help by providing students with free access to course materials from day one and the flexibility to print, save, and share their textbooks indefinitely. OER textbooks have been in use at Washtenaw Community College (WCC) since 2015. Since 2018, WCC has held 12 librarian and instructional designer-led OER faculty trainings to provide support for developing OER. This is substantial textbook savings for WCC students.
WCC will use the grant funding to infuse funds into its existing OER program to alleviate the financial burden on students. This infusion of funds would be used for stipends to encourage and support faculty in creating, rewriting, and/or adopting OER materials; events for faculty training and awareness; and improving accessibility with technical writing and formatting support for materials and copies of current and new OER texts in the library’s print and digital reserve collections.
This initiative will tremendously and exponentially impact student success at WCC. For example, in one year, the use of an OER textbook in an introduction to biology course saved our students roughly $160,000. This small grant investment of $200,000 to scale up our existing OER efforts will lead to projected potential savings of millions of dollars for WCC students over the next few years.
Wayne State University
Amount: $150,000.00
Project Summary:
Wayne State University’s (WSU) College Success grant will embed career readiness into the first-year experience. This initiative aligns with WSU’s Student Success 2.0: Every Warrier Rises, emphasizing personalized guidance from recruitment through graduation. Within this framework, the Warrier Strong Start Program offers comprehensive onboarding and first year experiences. By integrating career readiness into this structure, we aim to provide early exposure to career exploration and planning resources, reinforcing WSU’s College to Career initiative to ensure students graduate career ready.
Early engagement in career development is crucial; however, many students postpone utilizing career services until later in their academic journey, missing opportunities to explore career options and align their aspirations with their academic path. This delay can lead to a lac of career awareness, an increased likelihood of changing majors, and extended time to degree completion.
WSU will integrate career exploration activities into orientation and first year programming, enabling our most vulnerable students to thrive. This initiative will:
- Facilitate exploration of careers alongside academic majors and fields of study.
- Provide early career exploration support through Peer Career Advisors and tools such as Stepping blocks and College to Career maps.
- Incorporate career Services offerings into New Student Orientation, advising, and first year programming.
Western Michigan University
Amount: $816,500.00
Project Summary:
Students enrolling at Western Michigan University (WMU) are unique and benefit from individualized academic plans. Our student success and support staff work intentionally to help students identify their ideal major and develop backup options if the student needs to pivot to stay on track and graduate. Success @WMU seeks to leverage two student success tools which have been implemented over the past three years to help increase retention and graduation rates. The Student Success Hub (SSH) revolutionized our approach to student success, allowing communication across units to note, alert, and subsequently communicate with students to offer support and resources in real time. Gateways to Completion (G2C) launched as a support for faculty to redesign high DEWI rate courses to increase learning and retention for all students, especially those most impacted by equity gaps. WMU seeks to increase retention and graduation rates to support students to thrive in their lives during and after college.
