In 2003, the Lumina Foundation for Education launched a major initiative, “Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count,” to increase student success at community colleges. This initiative focuses on colleges with high enrollments of low-income students and students of color. In the first round, 27 colleges in five states were selected. The initiative aims to help more students succeed, while maintaining access to community college for groups that traditionally have faced barriers. A key means to improve the performance of colleges is through enhancement of their capacities to gather, analyze, and act on data on student outcomes, including data on students grouped by race, income, age, sex, and other characteristics.
From the beginning, a central component of this effort has been state policy. In each of the states where Achieving the Dream colleges are located, the initiative is working with a lead organization (typically the state community college system office or state association or community colleges) to develop policies that will enhance student success.
To help guide that policy effort, the Lumina Foundation commissioned an audit of state policy affecting access to, and success in, community colleges. An in-depth analysis was to be conducted of the initial five Achieving the Dream states (New Mexico, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia), to be supplemented later by a survey of all 50 states. This report summarizes that initial in-depth analysis of the first five Achieving the Dream states.
The report analyzes state policies with regard to student access, student success, and performance accountability, with particular focus on minority and low-income students. In the case of access, the report examines what policies states have in place with regard to open door admissions, tuition, student aid, outreach to potential students, a comprehensive curriculum, and convenient access. The success policies the report analyzes pertain to remediation, academic counseling and guidance, non-academic guidance and support, transfer assistance, baccalaureate provision, noncredit to credit articulation, and workforce and economic development. Finally, with regard to performance accountability, the report examines the indicators used by the state, how data are collected by the state, and how the data are used by the state and the community college to determine funding and shape how colleges act. Besides describing the policies in place, the report also summarizes the reactions of those interviewed to those policies. Moreover, it details suggestions for future directions for state policy toward community college student access and success.
Dougherty, K., Reid, M., & Nienhusser, H. K. (2006). State policies to achieve the dream in five states: An audit of state policies to aid student access to and success in community colleges in the first five Achieving the Dream states. New York: Community College Research Center.