Achieving the Dream

Community Colleges Count

Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count is a multiyear national initiative that helps community college students succeed. The initiative provides more than 100 colleges in 24 states with the tools they need to close the achievement gaps that exist for low-income and minority students. Research across the 16 states where JFF focuses its efforts shows that targeted data analysis can determine early in a student's college career whether he or she is on track for success.

Rationale

Community colleges offer broad access to higher education through open admissions. When their students succeed, the benefits are far-reaching. Community colleges educate new workers so our nation can stay competitive, and they retrain current workers to address evolving jobs or circumstances. In the process, community colleges prepare students for lives as productive, engaged members of society—preparation that serves both the students and their communities.

But today, many students leave college without meeting their educational goals and there are significant achievement gaps for low-income students, students of color, and others.

Achieving the Dream was created to help more community college students succeed—to complete courses, earn certificates, and earn degrees. The initiative is built on the belief that broad institutional change—informed by student-achievement data—is critical to achieve this result.

Achieving the Dream acts on multiple fronts:

• Providing planning and implementation grants to colleges and state policy efforts;
• Helping colleges develop and implement strategies to improve student success and build a culture of evidence in which decisions are based on data about student achievement;
• Conducting research about effective practices and student achievement at community colleges;
• Working to influence public policy so it supports colleges’ improvement efforts; and
• Engages communities, businesses, and the public.

Participating colleges enroll high percentages of low-income students and students of color, who are less likely to attain their educational goals. These colleges are working to close achievement gaps while maintaining open access and increasing student success overall. To do so, colleges will have to make lasting changes in their practices and cultures.

Approach
 
JFF coordinates the effort to improve policies in 16 states participating in the initiative. JFF also co-leads the national policy effort and participates in engaging the public and developing knowledge around the role of community colleges. In this role, JFF selects a lead organization in each state, makes grants to those organizations, and helps leadership teams from each state to set agendas for policy change.

State Policy

While Achieving the Dream focuses primarily on institutional change among participating community colleges, public policy innovation is integral to the initiative. Achieving the Dream is organized on the premise that participating colleges will find obstacles to their strategies for improvement that are due in part to the particulars of education policies, primarily in their states but also at the federal level. The policy component of Achieving the Dream is designed first to promote policy innovations that can make it easier for participating colleges to improve student outcomes. Second, this work is intended to help move lessons from the institutional change efforts of participating colleges into state—and national—policy so that they can be broadly institutionalized and sustained.

Achieving the Dream states have identified the following policy priorities:

• Develop visible public policy commitment to student access and success;
• Strengthen state data systems to measure student outcomes and encourage higher performance;
• Better align community colleges and other levels of education;
• Provide incentives for improved services for academically underprepared students;
• Expand access to financial aid and other financial incentives that increase persistence; and
• Build strong public support for policies that promote access and success.

The Developmental Education Initiative

The Developmental Education Initiative (DEI) builds on the foundation of Achieving the Dream, adapting it to the challenges associated with students who enter community college in need of remediation. DEI was launched in 2009 when six of the first states involved in Achieving the Dream joined together to focus more intently on policies to support dramatic improvements for students whose assessment scores indicate the need for developmental education. These six states—Connecticut, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Virginia—are committed to an aggressive policy and capacity-building agenda to support their community colleges’ efforts to improve success rates for students in need of developmental education.

Participating States

The following states have an active ATD policy component:

• Arkansas
• Connecticut
• Florida
• Hawaii
• Indiana
• Massachusetts
• Michigan
• New Mexico
• North Carolina
• Ohio
• Oklahoma
• Pennsylvania
• South Carolina
• Texas
• Virginia
• Washington

Funders

Lumina Foundation for Education provided funding for the initiative's startup and funded the 2004 colleges.

Additional funding for the initiative has been provided by:

• The Lloyd B. Balfour Foundation
• The Boston Foundation
• College Spark Washington
• The Irene E. & George A. Davis Foundation
• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• The Greater Texas Foundation
• The Heinz Endowments
• Houston Endowment Inc.
• Kamehameha Schools
• W.K. Kellogg Foundation
• KnowledgeWorks Foundation
• The Kresge Foundation
• Lumina Foundation for Education
• Nellie Mae Education Foundation
• Meadows Foundation
• Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
• New Economy Initiative
• Office of Hawaiian Affairs
• Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education
• Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation
• South Carolina Technical College System
• TERI
• The University of Hawaii Community College System
• Vermont Community Foundation