Evaluation: Lessons for Advancing Postsecondary Outcomes with Community & State Partners

In 2019, Lumina Foundation supported two state partnerships’ efforts in Alabama and Indiana in their effort to impact state-level postsecondary education using regional and local models. Lumina Foundation also engaged Equivolve Consulting to conduct a developmental evaluation to document the efforts in each state. The evaluation also offers examples of how the context in which a partnership operates, as well as the partnership-building process itself, can influence partnership structure/activities and stakeholder engagement. The evaluation findings outlined in this report are intended to serve as a guide for: 1) states that may be beginning to build their postsecondary networks, or 2) states that are trying to expand postsecondary efforts and need to better understand how their state goals and contexts may be leveraged to create successful and sustainable systems.