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 specifically on student groups that traditionally have faced significant barriers to success, including students of color and low-income students.

The January/February 2010 issue of Data Notes has just been released. This report, titled Grade Point Average and Student Outcomes, investigates the academic achievement patterns of students attending Achieving the Dream colleges. The data show that 21 percent of students at Achieving the Dream colleges had grade point averages (GPAs) of 3.50 or higher at the end of their first year. At least 40 percent of students with year one GPAs of 2.00 or higher completed, transferred, or were still enrolled by year five, compared with 21 percent of those with GPAs less than 2.00. High achieving students who received a Pell grant were more likely to persist than were those who did not receive Pell grants.

View this issue of Data Notes on the Achieving the Dream Web site at: http://www.achievingthedream.org/Portal/Modules/e8b34d70-f972-4096-b66c-9d2e4e55a877.asset.

Wellman, J. V. (2010, January). Connecting the dots between learning and resources. (NILOA Occasional Paper No. 3). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois and Indiana University, National Institute of Learning Outcomes Assessment.

With all the talk about the need for more accountability, surprisingly little is known about what kind of resources an institution needs in order to produce a given level of student attainment. Jane Wellman charts this territory and discovers some surprises, such as how conclusions about cost-effectiveness change when the metric is cost-per-degree rather than the traditional cost-per-enrollment. One result is that, contrary to popular belief, community colleges are not cheap when it comes to cost-per-degree. Another important insight—again against the grain of conventional wisdom—is that simply investing more money does not appear to produce more or better outcomes. As Wellman points out, the key to productivity is intentionally targeted investments.

To read the paper, visit http://www.learningoutcomesassessment.org/occasionalpaperthree.htm.