The Solution

Achieving the Dream is working to close achievement gaps and accelerate student success nationwide through efforts on four fronts: 1. Guiding Evidence-Based Institutional Change; 2. Influencing Public Policy; 3. Generating Knowledge; 4. Engaging the Public. These four fronts function as integrated levers that advance ground-level and system-level strategies to accomplish big-picture outcomes.

To foster an enduring movement for student success, Achieving the Dream has mobilized the nation's most comprehensive network of forward-thinking leaders and practitioners dedicated to community college reform. The Achieving the Dream National Reform Network includes nearly 200 colleges, 15 state policy teams, more than 100 coaches and advisers, and more than 20 investors, who have forged a common commitment to a shared agenda for student success while building an undertanding of the challenges we'll overcome together.     

Achieving the Dream Colleges:

• Exemplify a deep commitment to improving student success
• Are learning organizations and use data to identify problems, set goals, establish institutional priorities, allocate resources and measure progress
• Make lasting changes in policies, structures, programs and services to improve student outcomes

Achieving the Dream Policy States:

• Have a leadership structure in place to provide long-term advocacy on issues affecting student success
• Make success of community college students an explicit public policy goal 
• Identify and implement policy changes in data and accountability, financing, system alignment, and support for institutional improvement that promote improved student outcomes
• Move toward a policy culture that uses rich student data systems in decision-making and places high priority on improving student outcomes
• Provide community college leaders and policy makers nationally, with new knowledge about policies to improve student success

The Achieving the Dream National Reform Network has disseminated knowledge resulting in:

• Community colleges, policy-makers, and higher education researchers having meaningful data to benchmark colleges' performance based on student outcomes
• Community college administrators recognizing the value of data-informed decision-making and having tools available to help them analyze student outcomes at their institutions
• Colleges, policy-makers, and funders having access to better research on institutional policies and practices that improve student outcomes
• Colleges, policy-makers, and funders understanding Achieving the Dream's Student-Centered Model for Institutional Improvement and its applicability to other colleges

Achieving the Dream has helped engage:

• Critical audiences to recognize community colleges' potential and society's need to raise postsecondary attainment levels
• Employers, community leaders, students, and others to exert pressure on institutions and policy-makers to improve student outcomes and actively support colleges' efforts
• More colleges, beyond the Achieving the Dream Institutions, to adopt practices to improve student success