Pilots
Evidence over promises.
Each ASCND pilot will start deliberately small: a focused cohort of students, a donor behind them, and outcomes measured from the first day, on a real campus rather than in a projection.
This is where that evidence will live. We would rather show you the program now and report measured outcomes when they are real than lead with numbers we cannot yet stand behind.
The approach
How a pilot runs
A pilot brings together a university, a donor, and a defined cohort of students. The donor funds it end to end, the campus hosts it with light oversight, and ASCND runs it: the curriculum, the counselor training, and the technology that connects them.
Measurement is part of the design rather than an afterthought. From the first week, a pilot tracks how students engage, how their confidence moves, and whether support shows up in persistence: the questions below, answered with real participation and reported to the campus plainly. Each pilot sharpens the program for the one that follows.
What we will measure
As pilots run, these are the questions we will answer, with real participation, reported plainly. The figures are not in yet, and we will not invent them.
Student engagement
How students take up the learning and reach out to a counselor, measured from real participation as each pilot runs.
Confidence and wellbeing
Whether students feel steadier about money decisions after time in the program. To be measured directly with each campus that hosts a pilot.
Retention signal
Whether financial support shows up in students staying enrolled. The question ASCND is built to answer, and the one we will report honestly.
Want to see it for yourself?
The best way to understand ASCND is a conversation. We can walk you through the program, the research behind it, and what a pilot on your campus could look like.