��������Ƶ Awarded Federal Strengthening Institutions Grant to Advance Student Success

��Ƶ Awarded Federal Strengthening Institutions Grant to Advance Student Success

Federal investment will strengthen ��Ƶ’s new Center for Student Success, expand financial empowerment initiatives, and advance technology-enabled student support.

The grant will help Columbia connect students with academic guidance, financial resources, and timely support throughout their college experience.

��Ƶ has been awarded $582,352 from the U.S. Department of Education for the first year of a five-year Strengthening Institutions Program (SIP) grant, supporting a comprehensive initiative to increase student persistence, degree completion, financial empowerment, and career readiness.

Based on the College’s approved five-year project and proposed budget, Columbia anticipates receiving up to $3 million over the five-year grant period, subject to continued federal funding and applicable award requirements. The $3,000,000 grant funding will support about 90% of total project costs. Columbia will provide approximately $266,466 (~10%) as in-kind contributions to the project.

The initiative, “Strengthening Institutional Capacity Through Integrated Student Success, Financial Empowerment, and Technology-Enabled Persistence,” will provide significant support for the work of Columbia’s Center for Student Success, bringing together coordinated academic and student support services to help students successfully navigate their college experience and progress toward graduation and careers in the creative economy.

“This investment validates the direction Columbia is taking to fundamentally strengthen how we support students from enrollment through graduation,” says Shantay N. Bolton, PhD, president and CEO of ��Ƶ. “Our students bring extraordinary creativity, talent, and ambition to Columbia. The Center for Student Success is about matching that talent with an equally strong institutional commitment to their success. This grant allows us to deepen that work and build an infrastructure designed to help more students persist, graduate, and thrive in their careers.”

The five-year initiative centers on three interconnected areas of institutional transformation:

Integrated Student Success: Strengthening the Center for Student Success by coordinating academic advising, tutoring, supplemental instruction, early-alert interventions, student success coaching, and other services through a more integrated and data-informed approach.

Financial Literacy and Economic Empowerment: Expanding financial education for students and families through workshops, individualized coaching, digital learning resources, and peer-led initiatives designed to reduce financial barriers to persistence and help students make informed decisions about college, finances, and future career income.

Technology-Enabled Student Support: Modernizing Columbia’s student success infrastructure through integrated engagement platforms, responsible AI-supported tools, digital resources, and AI literacy training for faculty and staff.

The project builds on Columbia’s ongoing student-success transformation and its partnership with the Gardner Institute. It establishes an ambitious goal of increasing first-to-second-year retention to 75% while reducing stop-out rates among Pell-eligible and first-generation students and improving financial literacy, student engagement, AI literacy, and career readiness.

“For me, this grant is about ensuring that students do not have to navigate college alone,” says Emmanuel Lalande, EdD, senior vice president of enrollment strategy and student success and principal investigator for the grant. “The Center for Student Success was created around a simple but important idea: instead of expecting students to figure out where to go for help, we should organize ourselves around the student. This investment gives us the opportunity to build on that model, connecting advising, academic support, financial empowerment, technology, and proactive intervention in ways that help us reach students earlier and support them more intentionally. Our goal is not simply to enroll students at Columbia; it is to help them persist, graduate, and leave prepared to build meaningful careers in the creative economy.”

The initiative is particularly significant given the students Columbia serves. More than 40% of Columbia students receive Pell Grants, and more than 60% are first-generation college students. The federal investment will allow the College to strengthen institutional systems and student supports while developing approaches designed to be sustainable beyond the grant period.

The project will be administered through Columbia’s departments of Enrollment Management and Student Affairs in partnership with Academic Affairs and Information Technology, reflecting a college-wide approach to student persistence and completion.

The Strengthening Institutions program is authorized under Title III, Part A of the Higher Education Act and supports eligible colleges and universities in strengthening academic quality, institutional management, fiscal stability, and their capacity to serve low-income students. For the FY2026 competition, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration is administering the program on behalf of the U.S. Department of Education.

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About ��Ƶ: Creative Careers Start Here.
A destination for innovators for more than 135 years and located in the heart of downtown Chicago’s Cultural Mile,  is a private, non-profit school for creatives that offers a distinctive curriculum that blends creative and media arts, liberal arts, and business in 40 undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Columbia students graduate career-ready, with creative and critical thinking skills, real-world problem-solving abilities, standout bodies of work, and industry connections to fuel their professional journeys and the creative economy. Find ��Ƶ on social media at @ColumbiaChi on and, on and on. 

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