IPR Fellow Part of Gates Foundation College Initiative

IPR Faculty Fellow and C2S Director Lindsay Chase-Lansdale is one of the researchers working on an important new $69 million college completion initiative led by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Gates initiative seeks to double the number of low-income students who attend college and earn degrees, an increase of more than 250,000 graduates per year. Grants will be spread across 22 organizations and universities, including UCLA, Harvard, MDRC, National Youth Employment Coalition, and the Ounce of Prevention Fund.

Chase-Lansdale will collaborate with the Ounce of Prevention Fund and with Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Child Development and Education at Columbia University, on the Educare Postsecondary Education Project. The Ounce is a Chicago-based national organization dedicated to helping children in low-income families overcome the challenges of poverty through enriched early childhood education. It has established Educare centers serving children from six weeks to five years old in several states.

The researchers will identify and analyze existing supports and barriers to postsecondary educational attainment among young, low–income parents whose children are in Educare centers in Chicago, Denver, and Miami. In addition, the project will design a pilot intervention program that uses high-quality, early childhood education centers as a vehicle for supporting parents’ continuing educational development.

An expert on the interface between research and social policy for children and families Chase-Lansdale has been involved in several large-scale, longitudinal studies on risk and resilience among children and families facing economic hardship.  

“Study after study has shown that educational attainment is one of the most effective pathways to bettering life outcomes for poor families and their children,” Chase-Lansdale said. “So I am delighted to be part of this groundbreaking, interdisciplinary initiative that has the potential not only to improve lives for low-income families now, but also to help break the cycle of poverty for future generations.” She is professor of human development and social policy in Northwestern's School of Education and Social Policy and a developmental psychologist.