Use of Evidence

Last August, President Obama challenged the nation and American higher education to produce 8 million more college graduates by 2020, listing this as “the single most important step we can take” to ensure the nation succeeds in the 21st century. For their part, community colleges were asked to increase the number of associate degrees and certificates they award by 5 million, making these institutions responsible for over 60 percent of the graduates needed to reach the goal.

Longitudinal cohort analysis is a powerful tool for helping colleges understand student performance. It involves tracking students as a group or cohort over a specified period of time. The results allow administrators, faculty, and staff to identify groups of students who are succeeding or falling behind and the points in the educational pipeline where they may falter. This guide is designed to give colleges an overview of longitudinal cohort analysis and how it can be used to improve student success.

Across the nation, state governments and private foundations are pursuing the long-elusive goal of improving college completion rates. Driving these efforts is a growing awareness of the large proportion of students who come to college—especially community college—unprepared for college-level coursework. This challenge is one that the states and colleges involved in Achieving the Dream and its Developmental Education Initiative have been addressing for several years.

Our analysis of wage and employment data shows that the United States has been underproducing college-educated workers for decades. Postsecondary education is in high demand among employers—and as the recovery takes hold and hiring resumes, it will continue to be in high demand. The undersupply of postsecondary-educated workers has led to two distinct problems: a problem of efficiency and a problem of equity. Without enough talent to meet demand, we are losing out on the productivity that more postsecondary-educated workers contribute to our economy.

For many students at community colleges, finding a path to degree completion is the equivalent of navigating a shapeless river on a dark night. While academic preparation and financial supports are critical components of student success, subtle institutional features may also play an important role.

Taking the Next Step distinguishes between milestones that must be attained in order to get to completion and success indicators that increase a student’s chances of completion.

When Achieving the Dream began in 2004, few states had improving community college student success as a paramount policy priority. A central goal of Achieving the Dream has been to demonstrate that states (and colleges) could create a policy environment more conducive to institutional change strategies that improve student outcomes.

Achieving the Dream works with more than 150 community colleges across the United States with the specific goal of increasing student success. Together, Achieving the Dream colleges graduate or transfer close to 250,000 students a year. With just a 5 percent increase in graduation rates, we can positively impact the lives of an additional 12,500 students each year—or 62,500 students over five years. That’s 62,500 additional students achieving a life-changing goal because of the work to which we are committing ourselves today.