Resources From Completion by Design

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Postsecondary Education Success Plan Brochure

This is a comprehensive summary of the Foundation’s overarching Postsecondary Success Strategy. Completion by Design is a significant initiative at the center of these strategies.




 

• The Completion by Design Concept Paper

This paper details the three phases of the initiative, including an overview of the grantee (or managing partner) selection process, a description of planning and implementation at participating colleges, and key learning objectives, roles, terms and definitions.




 

• Preventing Loss, Creating Momentum

This is the foundation of the Completion by Design approach to increasing community college completion rates for low-income students under the age of 26. The Framework outlines the student experience from their first connection with college to their college completion. The Framework identifies the major points where colleges often lose students and the strategies that will create momentum towards student completion.  A PDF file is provided below.
 

• Pathway Design Principles (Revised March 2012)

These eight design principles draw from research, practice, and participating colleges’ experience during the planning phase. While there is no single model for a completion pathway – defined as an integrated set of institutional policies, practices, and programs intended to maximize students’ likelihood of completing a credential – these principles can help inform the choices colleges make when designing their pathways. Creating systemic change requires attention to these principles, but colleges must strategically implement them based on their local context and students’ needs.  
 

Other National Efforts and Resources

• President Obama’s Graduation Initiative   In 2009 President Obama announced the American Graduation Initiative, a landmark proposal to provide new federal support for community colleges. Learn more about the initiative.
• Achieving the Dream    Achieving the Dream is dedicated to helping more community college students, particularly low-income students and students of color, stay in school and earn a college certificate or degree.
• Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence   The Aspen Prize recognizes community colleges with outstanding academic and workforce outcomes in both absolute performance and improvements over time. It focuses on student success and lifting up models that work to honor excellence, stimulate innovation, and create benchmarks for measuring progress.
• College Completion Agenda    The College Completion Agenda was developed by the College Board Advocacy and Policy Center to provide reliable, measurable information that tracks the collective progress, as well as policymaking strategies each state can use to help students reach college completion.
• Complete College America     Complete College America is devoted to working with states to significantly increase the number of Americans with quality career certificates or college degrees and to close attainment gaps for traditionally underrepresented populations.
• Complete to Compete   Complete to Compete is an initiative of the National Governor's Association, dedicated to working with higher education executive officers, and campus leaders  to make marked improvements in college completion and productivity.  
• The Completion Arch     The Completion Arch is a web based tool that provides quick and easy access to national, state and initiative-level data that describe the progress and success of community college students.
• Completion Matters    Completion Matters is a knowledge and learning community focused on two- and four-year college completion. With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME, www.iskme.org) facilitates this online collaboration site.