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How Other States Can Learn from Delaware's College Application Success Story

Delaware went from having 18 percent of high-performing students not enroll in college to zero in a short amount of time.

Delaware had a big disconnect. Eighteen percent of its highly qualified students didn't enroll in college, more than a quarter of whom came from low-income families. 

These students scored 1,550 or more out of 2,400 points on the SAT test that colleges often use in the admissions process, so they knew their stuff academically. The students just didn't have the right information to know how to apply for college, much less navigate the complicated financial aid forms. 

In a new issue brief, team members on the Pew Charitable Trust's strategic data project researched the situation in Delaware and shared what leaders did to tackle it. The brief is part of a broader series that assesses how states are using data to inform policy decisions. 

Delaware has a long history in the top tier of states that have set an example with student data, said Paige Kowalski, executive vice president for the Data Quality Campaign. Other top states include Georgia, Kentucky, Washington state, Maryland and Tennessee.

Despite its small size, it still took a lot of work and time for Delaware to tackle its college enrollment problem. Yet over the past three years, Delaware has watched every high-performing student apply to college, bringing the number who hadn't to zero. Here's what other states can learn from Delaware's experience.

1. Establish a shared vision

One of the critical components of Delaware's strategy included establishing a common understanding that it was not okay for these high-performing students to slip through the cracks between high school graduation and college enrollment. Delaware decided as a whole that its students should all have the information they need to apply for college and receive help along the way to do so, especially with financial aid forms.

"You have to have a shared vision for your state around what you want for your kids and what success looks like," Kowalski said. "And that shared vision becomes the goal and the driver of the work. You can't really talk about your data silos until you really recognize and break down your people silos."

Once the data revealed the disconnect, people had to act. And they did. 

2. Follow top leaders

Former Gov. Jack Markell and former Education Secretary Mark Murphy led Delaware in its drive to make sure every highly qualified student applied to college. In fact, the Data Quality Campaign recognized Markell as its 2014 state policymaker for his efforts. For example, they established College Application Month between October and November, and included resources on the month's website. 

Under their leadership, local schools and universities came together to tackle the problem from different angles starting in 2011. And thanks to a Delaware law requiring local schools to provide learning community time during the work day, teachers frequently collaborated to help students succeed, so they were well prepared to participate in the broader state effort. 

"Leadership is really everything," Kowalski said. "You can have a fancy system, but if you don't have your leaders calling for use and calling for a laser-like focus on using this data for continuous improvement, it's unlikely to happen."  

3. Partner with others

Delaware's small population and the higher education office's place under the Education Department definitely made it easier to encourage collaboration among different entities, said Jennifer Thornton, who manages Pew's strategic data project. But it's something that larger states can do as well.

One state agency doesn't have to do everything on its own. Delaware pulled together universities including the University of Delaware, schools and state leaders to increase its college enrollment rate by 2014 as it said it would in a federal grant proposal that the U.S. Education Department awarded in 2009. Harvard University's Center for Education Policy Research also helped clean the data that had been sitting in the state's longitudinal data system since 1994 so it could be analyzed and acted on. This Strategic Data Project paid for three fellows to help the state accomplish its enrollment goal. 

Ultimately these steps helped increase college access and bridge the gap between high school and college.

"Their efforts opened doors for students who did not see that as a path for them or didn't understand how to navigate the path to get into higher ed," Thornton said.