West Virginia State University is one of 130 public universities and systems working to increase college access, eliminate the achievement gap, and award hundreds of thousands more degrees by 2025 through the Powered by Publics: Scaling Student Success initiative. Led by the Association of Public and Land-grant (APLU), the participating institutions are working in small peer groups, or "transformation clusters," to refine, implement, and scale innovative practices that address shared challenges. Together, these institutions aim to increase college access, eliminate the achievement gap, and award hundreds of thousands more degrees by 2025. Participating universities and state systems collectively serve 3 million undergraduate students, including 1 million Pell Grant recipients.




Each cluster is focused on solving different pieces of the student success puzzle as public universities work together to tear down long-standing barriers, eliminate the achievement gap, prepare students to thrive in the 21st century workforce, and collectively increase the number of degrees they award.

By design, the institutions in the effort reflect a wide array of institutional characteristics such as enrollment, student demographics, regional workforce needs, and selectivity. The broad diversity of the institutions is intended to help create a playbook of adaptable student success reforms that can be adopted and scaled up across a variety of institution types – including those with limited resources.