Evaluation of California’s College Corps to Understand Civic Engagement and Student Success Outcomes

WestEd’s Center for Economic Mobility is the evaluator for the #CaliforniansForAll College Corps, studying how paid community service affects students’ education, civic engagement, personal growth, and job prospects. We are helping California Volunteers use data to improve the experiences of College Corps Fellows.

The Challenge

California faces connected problems: college students who struggle with rising costs—and debt that can hurt their education—and communities that urgently need people to help with climate action, K–12 education, and food insecurity. The #CaliforniansForAll College Corps tackles both sets of connected problems by giving students scholarships, ongoing training, and leadership development opportunities in exchange for providing community service.

Thorough evaluation of the program from multiple angles is necessary to determine whether the program works. As the program grows to serve thousands of low-income students across the University of California, California State University, and community college campuses, the state needs evidence about who participates, how they experience the program, what benefits they get, and how the program works differently across diverse campus and community settings.

How We’re Taking Action

The Center is conducting a comprehensive mixed-methods evaluation across two cohorts of Fellows while tracking longitudinal outcomes for Fellows from the program’s first 4 years. Beyond data collection, we are helping California Volunteers interpret findings and develop strategies to strengthen Fellow supports and improve program experiences.

Our collaborative approach includes the following:

comprehensive data collection through Fellow surveys (entrance, post program, and early exit), alumni tracking, campus case studies, and host-site focus groups
data interpretation sessions with California Volunteers leadership to identify patterns in the challenges, support needs, and success factors of Fellows
actionable recommendations translating evaluation findings into specific strategies for enhancing Fellow recruitment, onboarding, mentorship, and retention
real-time insights through preliminary memos and quarterly briefings that enable midcourse corrections and responsive support strategies
longitudinal analysis examining trends across cohorts to understand which program improvements are making a difference for Fellows

We deliver insights through multiple formats designed for action: data visualizations that highlight key patterns, facilitated working sessions to develop improvement strategies, and detailed reports with specific recommendations for enhancing Fellow experiences. Our partnership approach ensures California Volunteers and its partners develop targeted interventions. By combining rigorous evaluation with collaborative sense-making, we’re helping California Volunteers continuously refine the program to better serve Fellows while maximizing community impact.

What Makes Us Different

Partnership for improvement – We work hand-in-hand with California Volunteers to interpret data and develop evidence-based strategies for enhancing Fellow supports.

Action-oriented analysis – Our evaluation focuses on generating insights that directly inform program improvements and Fellow success strategies.

Responsive support – We provide real-time findings throughout the program year, enabling California Volunteers to make timely adjustments that benefit current and future Fellows.