Yu Tian, UEP’25, tackled a critical question for her capstone project: What happens when aspiring educators from historically underrepresented backgrounds lose crucial financial support? Her research provides vital insights for organizations aiming to diversify the teaching workforce.

Yu partnered with Equity Institute, a Rhode Island nonprofit whose Educator Pathway Program (EPP) faced a challenge. While its first cohort received full scholarships, funding shifts now mean participants get only small stipends or case-by-case aid.

Her project, Planning for Impact: An Evaluation of Last-Dollar Scholarships in the Educator Pathway Program, directly addresses this by designing a comprehensive evaluation plan. Yu explained that her goal was to compare program completion, job placement, and retention rates between EPP participants who received full scholarships and those who did not.

Financial Aid and Long-Term Success

Yu developed a mixed-methods approach, combining administrative data, participant surveys, and potential interviews. Her goal was to explore how varying levels of financial support might impact program engagement and long-term success in the education field.

Her plan measured key outcomes like program completion, employment in teaching roles, and continued retention in the profession over one, two, and five years.

To accurately assess the impact of reduced financial support, Yu employed a research design that carefully compared these two groups of participants, controlling for other factors. This allowed her to determine how differences in funding directly influenced outcomes like finishing the program or securing a teaching job.

This project directly responds to the Equity Institute's need for data-driven guidance as they make future funding decisions and refine their program design. Yu believes her findings have broader applications.

"The findings will also contribute to the broader field by highlighting the critical role of financial support in diversifying the educator workforce," she noted.

Advice to Future UEPs

Yu encourages future Urban Education Policy students to embrace the program's collaborative spirit. "UEP is a welcoming and open community. Lean into it, share your ideas, and remember that you're never doing this alone."