Data Notes is a bimonthly newsletter that presents data from the national Achieving the Dream database. Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count, is a multiyear, national initiative to help more community college students succeed. The initiative focuses particularly on student groups that traditionally have faced significant barriers to success, including students of color and low-income students.

The March/April 2010 issue of Data Notes has just been released and can be viewed on the Achieving the Dream website.

Issue Topic: Attendance and Completion Patterns
Community college students take circuitous routes through their education; very few enroll full-time and continue until they graduate. Erratic enrollment patterns have been negatively linked with academic progress and eventual credential completion—students enrolled continuously and on a full-time basis are more likely to attain their academic goals than those not enrolled continuously, or who drop to part-time status. This analysis followed students through three regular academic years to identify their varying attendance patterns. Determining students’ reasons for changing their enrollment status may help colleges become more sensitive to how they can help students intent on their goals, but inconsistent in their pursuit of education. The analysis suggests that, in addition to leaving college without credentials, students often shift among full-time, part-time, and non-attendance. Measuring persistence simply by determining if a student enrolls over successive enrollment periods misses the complexity indicated by these data, as community college students take many diverse paths to achieve their goals.

For Achieving the Dream Colleges, Data Facilitators, and Coaches:
Individual college’s companion figures to this issue of Data Notes will be available shortly on the Achieving the Dream web submission site. To view your college’s data, sign in to the web submission site using your web submission site username and password and select the March/April 2010 issue under the “Reports” menu.