Grant money fuels the effort to produce better data.

There are some startling statistics that dog the community college sector. Many of the students who enter the systems leave without earning a certificate or associate's degree, or moving onto a four-year system. A study conducted by Thomas Bailey, director of the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University (N.Y.), shows that 61 percent of the high school students who graduated in or near 1992 and who entered community college systems left without earning a degree or certificate.

This particular group of students is identified as belonging to the National Educational Longitudinal Survey, and Bailey and others are tracking them for very particular reasons. They want to help these students realize their higher ed goals. They also believe that better data is the answer.

In June, Lumina Foundation, a nonprofit higher education group, launched the Achieving the Dream initiative. The pilot project selected 27 community colleges--some with sophisticated data systems, others without--and gave each $50,000 in planning grant money. Eventually each college will receive $400,000 over four years and other schools will be added to the project. In all, Lumina is planning to give $10 million to establish the initiative, which is to drive "informed decision making" on the community college campus. The goal is to keep the focus on community college data for the next eight to 10 years.

Bailey and others believe there is much to be mined in the student demographic data. Is there a higher preponderance of poor students who are dropping out early? Are they doing so for purely economic reasons? Are there academic interventions that will help them complete the "gateway" English and mathematics courses that will allow them to earn a degree?

So far administrators know that community colleges serve a large number of lower-income, minority students, but they do not know if there are other complexities, and solutions, that will shed more light on the situation. Academic records, financial aid, and registration information will be used with other information to help solve the problem.

Lumina has enlisted data coaches to go onto campus and access the systems that are in place, and help staff better mine data, or make upgrades.

"Many will say, 'Our students aren't here to get a degree,'" says John Lee, president of JBL Associates, a firm that is coaching community colleges via the Achieve the Dream initiative. "People have these stock answers. We are trying to bring them to truthfulness about what they know and don't know."