November/December 2009 Issue of Data Notes Available

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 November/December 2009 issue of Data Notes has just been released, and you can view it on the Achieving the Dream Web site at:
http://www.achievingthedream.org/DATARESEARCH/DATANOTESNEWSLETTER/default.tp.

Data Notes (Vol4No6) November/December 2009: Late Stop-Outs, Part 2:
This issue of Data Notes is the second of a two-part series investigating the characteristics of late stop-outs - students who accumulate at least 30 credits within the first two years, only to stop out without completing credentials or transferring. The data show that male students were more likely to stop out (53 percent) than female students (48 percent), and students under 20 and 30 years old and over were less likely to stop out (47 percent and 52 percent, respectively) than students in their twenties (about 55 percent). Fifty-five percent of students without a declared major or program of study left the college by the end of their fifth year, compared with 53 percent of students with a terminal goal and 47 percent of students with a transfer goal. Students who had earned at least 30 credits by the end of their second academic year and were referred to developmental education courses one level below college level—regardless of subject area—had five-year outcomes (45 to 49 percent) that were not dissimilar to those for non-referred students (50 percent).

Round 1, 2, 3, and 4 Colleges, Data Facilitators and Coaches – you can also view your individual college’s companion figures to this issue of Data Notes on www.dreamwebsubmission.org (the Achieving the Dream Web submission site). To view your college’s data, sign in to the Web submission site www.dreamwebsubmission.org using your username and password, and select the month issue under the “Reports” menu.