Community colleges enroll a diverse set of students who often face challenges meeting their  basic needs (Goldrick‐Rab, 2018). Attending class potentially means less time to work,  coordinating child care, and finding reliable transportation for in-person classes or technology  and broadband access for virtual classes. These challenges impose indirect costs beyond the  direct cost of tuition, fees, and books (Dynarski, Page, and Scott-Clayton, 2022; Page and ScottClayton, 2016). Furthermore, many students struggle to pay for housing, food, and health care  (Institute of Education Sciences, 2021). Research indicates that helping to support students’ basic  needs can have positive effects on success in postsecondary education (Clotfelter, Hemelt, and  Ladd, 2018; Nguyen, Kramer, and Evans, 2019). This is especially important given relatively  low graduation rates among community college students (Causey et al., 2020; Wolfson et al.,  2022). 

This report explores the potential benefits and costs of one low-cost and relatively light-touch  tool that colleges might use to increase students’ access to assistance.1 We focus on the Findhelp  platform, which is modeled as a “social care network” that connects students through an online  platform to services that provide help (Findhelp, undated). Findhelp is a website that lists local  resources and services, and it is available to anyone affiliated with an institution partnering with  the platform.2 This network is intended to reduce barriers to college access and success and  potentially strengthen connections between providers and the college. Colleges can rebrand the  platform with their logo, rename it, and integrate it with existing student services. While  Findhelp does not provide direct counseling support, it is much less expensive to implement than  staff-intensive programs, such as counseling, since staff spend less than 10 percent of their time  supporting it (versus 100 percent for many staff-intensive programs [Bettinger and Baker,  2014]). 

There is little research on Findhelp and similar light-touch resources, so our research  documents how the resource was implemented at four community colleges in North Carolina, the  implementation costs, and how student success changed following implementation. We use  information from interviews with the campus staff who implemented the platform, administrative  student-level data from the NCCCS on student success, and data from Findhelp on how much  individual students interacted with the platform.