The Pell Grant is targeted to students with the greatest financial need, and many policymakers find the Pell Grant a useful policy lever for promoting access and success for students from lower- and moderate-income backgrounds. There are several examples where policymakers use Pell eligibility to allocate resources and hold colleges accountable…

Students, families, colleges, and lawmakers need clearer information on postsecondary outcomes to make informed decisions. By leveraging data available at institutions and federal agencies, a nationwide student-level data network (SLDN) would close information gaps that persist in our higher education landscape to answer critical questions about…

The Accountability Plan is an annual report that is closely aligned with the Board of Governors' 2025 System Strategic Plan. This report enhances the System's commitment to accountability and strategic planning by fostering greater coordination between institutional administrators, University Boards of Trustees and the Board of Governors regarding…

There is an increasing requirement in higher education (HE) worldwide to deliver excellence. Benchmarking is widely used for this purpose, but methodological approaches to the creation of benchmark metrics vary greatly. Approaches require selection of factors for inclusion and subsequent calculation of benchmarks for comparison. We describe an…

This is the technical appendix for the report "Gaining Momentum: Refining Corequisite Learning Support to Boost Student Success in the First Year and Beyond" which seeks to develop a body of actionable information about how to refine learning support, close equity gaps, and promote strong momentum toward success for community college…

The purpose of this document is to recommend data visualization practices that will help education agencies communicate data meaning in visual formats that are accessible, accurate, and actionable for a wide range of education stakeholders. Although this resource is designed for staff in education agencies, many of the visualization principles…

Lorain County Community College (LCCC) was designed for access, however, not necessarily completion. The college was unprepared for students who wanted to earn a degree but then often didn't make it to graduation. In 2011, LCCC retained fewer than six in ten students. Its three-year graduation rate was 8 percent. For African American students, it…

Identifying schools that are beating the odds--schools that are exceeding academic performance expectations, given the composition of their student body--can lead to promising practices that other schools serving similar populations can implement. Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast & Islands used data on high-poverty high schools in…

The completion agenda is in full force at the nation's community colleges. To maximize the impact colleges can have on improving completion, colleges must organize around using student progress and outcome data to monitor and track their efforts. Unfortunately, colleges are struggling to identify relevant data and to mobilize staff to review…

The Southeast Comprehensive Center (SECC) at SEDL, an affiliate of American Institutes for Research (AIR), partnered with the Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE) in 2014 to assist in evaluating Alabama Plan 2020, mainly focusing on learners and the graduation rate. SECC provided professional development and analytic technical assistance…

Computer programming has been part of Information Systems (IS) curricula since the first model curriculum. It is with programming that computers are instructed how to implement our ideas into reality. Yet, over the last decade numbers of computing undergraduates have significantly declined in North American academic programs. In addition, high…

Nationally, state funding to higher education has significantly decreased. Ironically, the trend of state divestment in higher education coincides with federal and state policies geared toward increasing degree completion rates. Through an analysis of qualitative data gathered at California higher education institutions, this paper highlights how…

Each year, "Diverse: Issues In Higher Education" publishes lists of the Top 100 producers of associate, bachelor's, and graduate degrees awarded to minority students based on research conducted by Dr. Victor M. H. Borden, professor of educational leadership and policy studies at Indiana University Bloomington. This article presents a…

As the economy increasingly demands a more educated workforce, states are looking to their colleges and universities to meet that demand for a better educated citizenry. Not only are individuals with postsecondary education likely to be employed, they are also likely to be more engaged in their communities through activities such as voting and…

This article presents the Top 100 institutions that conferred the most bachelor's degrees to students of color in academic year 2010-2011. The data for this analysis are collected from all U.S. postsecondary institutions through the completions survey of the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) maintained by the National Center…