Focus Area
Curriculum | Government Funded | Higher Education | K-12 | Nonprofits | STEM
Higher Education
Cobblestone has partnered with colleges and universities for nearly two decades to evaluate programs that support student success, faculty development, and institutional improvement. We have served as an external evaluator on government-funded higher education grants, including U.S. Department of Education Title III and Title V programs, NSF-funded research and workforce initiatives, and foundation-supported projects. Our work spans the full evaluation cycle, from evaluation planning and proposal development through annual reporting and final outcome measurement. We understand the demands placed on higher education program teams and work as a reliable partner to reduce burden and strengthen evidence of impact.
HIGHER ED PROJECTS
80+
HIGHER ED INSTITUTIONS
40+
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SECURED BY OUR CLIENTS
$1,500,000
On a recent survey of our clients, 20 out of 21 respondents said that Cobblestone was successful in helping their organization secure external funding.
The Hostos Title V team was able to meet federal reporting requirements early and with confidence.
The Challenge
Hostos Community College (part of the City University of New York system) needed a U.S. Department of Education Title V evaluator who could do more than check boxes. The project team was looking for a true partner: someone hands-on and collaborative who could demonstrate measurable program impact, meet federal reporting deadlines, and engage directly with the project’s Steering Committee.
Our Solution
We conducted a thorough review of the Hostos Title V program activities and year-round data to build a clear, evidence-based picture of project performance. We established monthly team meetings to maintain alignment on program updates, data needs, and reporting timelines, keeping the team on track and well-prepared. When it came to federal reporting, we took a hands-on role: guiding the team through the calculation and submission of required performance measures and drafting key narrative sections of the Annual Performance Report (APR) to reduce burden and ensure compliance.
The Impact
Case Study
It has been an absolute pleasure working with the Cobblestone team on the PURSUE project for the past 10 years. Your expert advice significantly improved our assessment plan and helped us to define the scope of our work. Our regularly scheduled meetings kept us on track and also provided opportunities to reflect on our progress, troubleshoot, and revise at various stages of our project. Your annual reports elegantly captured so much of our work... I can honestly say that our project would not be what it is today without your contributions.
Cindy Bukach, Ph.D.
Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience & Director of PURSUE
University of Richmond
Your team was brilliant! I want to thank you and your team for this beautiful report! It is well constructed and thoughtful—it really captures our project. Thank you! We are greatly satisfied, and having support with the APR this go-around was instrumental to a smooth and successful process, especially given the shorter deadline this year.
Shaneka Crossman
Title V Director
Eugenio María de Hostos Community College
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FAQs
Formative evaluation happens during a program's development or early implementation, providing ongoing feedback so that improvements can be made in real time. Summative evaluation happens once a program is more established, generating findings about overall effectiveness — whether to continue, expand, or discontinue. Most multi-year evaluation projects incorporate both: formative evaluation to support learning and adaptation, and summative evaluation to demonstrate impact.
Yes. We regularly work with organizations that are implementing their first externally evaluated program. Part of our role is helping clients understand what evaluation involves, what data they will need to collect, and how to build internal capacity for ongoing data use. We also work with experienced evaluation consumers who want a sophisticated partner to push the rigor of their work. In either case, we begin with a thorough planning process to ensure the evaluation design matches your goals and resources.
Bringing in an evaluator early, ideally during the proposal or planning phase, gives you the strongest foundation for a rigorous, well-designed evaluation and allows them to help develop measurable goals, a logic model, and a data collection infrastructure from the start. That said, it is rarely too late — evaluators can often work with existing data and establish systems mid-program. For federally funded projects, evaluation planning is often a required component of the grant application itself, making early engagement particularly important.