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Nonprofit Launches Center to Help Colleges Leverage Data

The new Center for Leadership, Institutional Metrics and Best Practices run by the nonprofit Complete College America will give colleges tools to track predictors of success and incorporate them into strategic planning.

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Complete College America (CCA), an Indiana-based nonprofit focused on increasing college completion, is launching a new national center to help colleges use data more effectively to improve student outcomes.

According to a recent news release, the Center for Leadership, Institutional Metrics and Best Practices (CLIMB) will offer hands-on training and tools to help schools — especially those serving historically underrepresented students — move beyond simply gathering student success data.

“Data in higher education has been abundant, but underutilized,” Yolanda Watson Spiva, president of Complete College America, said in a public statement. “With this new initiative, we’re helping institutions build capacity to move from data collection to data action — ensuring that the metrics colleges and universities track lead to the best outcomes for students and real, measurable progress in increasing college completion.”

CLIMB will help institutions track predictors of success such as retention, credit accumulation and completion of gateway courses. The program aims to establish a national model for implementing data-driven reforms. It also aims to help universities embed these metrics into daily operations and strategic planning.

While CCA reports steady gains in on-time graduation rates among its partner institutions over the past 15 years, that progress has been uneven, according to the news release. Gaps in college completion persist for older students and students of color, and overall college enrollment is declining. CLIMB aims to help close this gap.

“The last mile of data-driven decision-making is about ensuring that actionable insights reach those with the resources and influence to improve student outcomes,” Charles Ansell, vice president for research, policy and advocacy at CCA, said in a public statement. “This effort is not only about identifying the right metrics, it’s about integrating them into daily operations and the way that higher education professionals and educators do their work. Our ultimate goal is to use data to build campus systems that are both accountable and responsive to student needs.”
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