The Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation has launched a $20 million Intermediaries For Scale program for 12 organizations. The organizations will be intermediaries between universities and colleges that are trying to be student-centered and accustomed to assisting needy students, students of color, as well as adults in achieving their educational goals.  

Gates Foundation supporting education transformation

The foundation indicated in a statement that there is growing pressure on universities and colleges to transform as the demand for an educated workforce grows. The statement indicated that moist institutions are already transforming, and therefore they seek resources, networking, and guidance to realize their efforts.

The intermediaries selected are a collection of organizations that have been promoting student success agendas and college completion for years. Therefore they were picked because of the trust universities and colleges have on them as good partners in the transformation of education. Foundation officials likened the role of the intermediaries to that of contractors in renovations. The intermediaries will help assist institutions to get the right partners to assist in making an important change in their business models, culture, and structure to meet changing student needs.  

Foundation works with 30 institutions

Currently, the foundation works with 30 universities and colleges on student success in what they refer to as the Frontier Set. Through the intermediaries, Gates is targeting to expand the group to around 300 institutions. On aggregate, the intermediaries currently represent or work with around three-quarters of the country’s community colleges and public universities.

Between 2020 and 2021, the work of the intermediaries will involve capacity building to assist the institutions in student-centered transformation. However, the long-term objective of the two-years grants will be to help more universities and colleges in the future.

The 12 selected intermediaries include the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, Achieving Dream, American Indian Higher Education Consortium, American Association of State Colleges And Universities, and John N Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education. Others include MDRC, UNCF, E3 Alliance, Excelencia in Education Growing, Complete College America, and Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities.