In fall 2012, a public-minded privately held firm, Quad Learning, partnered with two community colleges to pilot a new program dubbed “American Honors” (AH), which was designed to help academically talented community college students overcome the challenges of transferring to more selective four-year destinations. By fall 2018, Quad Learning had dissolved the AH program for domestic students.
This paper traces the components of the program’s socially conscious theory of change, its for-profit business model, and the tensions between the two. The authors explore the meaning of AH’s various components to students, faculty, and administrators, estimate its impact on students’ academic outcomes, and offer takeaways for future public-private ventures.