The Completion Arch: Measuring Community College Student Success--2012

Essential to tracking student success at community colleges is the availability of solid data and commonly defined metrics that go beyond measuring the traditional (and limited) enrollment and graduation rates that these colleges report to the federal government. In particular, what is needed are metrics that illuminate what happens to students between the starting and the ending points: Where do they make progress? Where do they falter? Do they achieve interim milestones? These types of metrics can help community colleges and states more quickly evaluate whether specific programs and policies are leading to successful interim outcomes and also to determine where interventions may be necessary to aid students who lose momentum or show signs of failure. Prominent initiatives, researchers and associations have made it their prerogative to define and report such metrics as well as to redefine completion to include more types of students who attend community colleges--part-time students; those who first enroll in winter, spring and summer; and students who do not start in a certificate or degree program. Some of the key organizations leading the data reform effort include Achieving the Dream (ATD), Complete College America (CCA), Community College Research Center (CCRC) and Voluntary Framework of Accountability (VFA). "The Completion Arch: Measuring Community College Student Success" was conceived by MPR Associates and the College Board to consolidate the efforts of these initiatives by compiling a set of common metrics and summarizing the statistics in the form of national-, state- and initiative-level indicators of student progress and success. The indicators in "The Completion Arch" help fill the need for useful, reliable and centrally organized statistics on the academic progress of community college students. The indicators present publicly available and commonly defined metrics of the progress and success of community college students from the time they first enroll until they enter the workforce after college. In synthesizing hundreds of indicators from 50 states and dozens of sources--and collecting these data in a single place--"The Completion Arch" aims to be a comprehensive resource for a wide audience of college officials, state policymakers, researchers and philanthropic organizations as these groups strive to improve community college education. Appended are: (1) Primary Data Sources; (2) Availability of Indicators by State; and (3) Glossary. (Contains 25 figures and 2 footnotes.)