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This practice brief, issued by the Council for Opportunity in Education (COE) discusses effective ways for College Access Programs to use student tracking data to improve their own effectiveness and to increase the chance of students persisting and completing college.

The initiative from which it is derived encourages the use of data in a way that goes beyond compliance and reporting requirements–that uses data in real time, follows the contours of program activities and shares data in a way that reveals unseen problems and fruitful possibilities. In this way, College Access Programs, partnering colleges and community organizations increase their performance, collaborate and communicate more effectively, improve results and, most important, enrich the lives of student.

The core of this brief reflects experiences from GO College, the program embodiment of our i3 initiative1 which “embeds” College Access Program staff at high schools with high percentages of low-income students.

As part of this project COE developed a data solution to capture, store and analyze the most meaningful data for educators' use. Called empower, it tracks data and delivers information via dashboards and analytics to help increase student success.

We found that the results of sharing data in this way often spark actions that make programs and their partners more accountable and responsive. In order to move into a future where college access and success are shared as vital priorities, data must be at the center of continuous improvement and employed as a key tool in professional development and partner dialogue. This is one such tool.