CSUSM Joins National Student Achievement Initiative

CSUSM has signed on as an early adopter of the Student Achievement Measure (SAM) project, a joint initiative of six higher education associations in Washington D.C. designed to improve the reporting of student progress and graduation. According to the SAM project website, CSUSM joins four other California campuses including Hope International University, Humboldt State University, the University of California-Riverside and the University of California-Santa Barbara in this groundbreaking effort to enhance transparency and provide the public with comprehensive information on student success.A recent study by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reported that more than one in five students who complete a degree do so at an institution other than the one where they started, and 15 percent of students have previously attended college in at least one other state. However the current Federal tracking model measures only full-time students who enroll and finish at their first college or university. SAM provides an improved way to report student progress and graduation by including a greater proportion of an institution’s undergraduate students as well as tracking students who enroll in multiple higher education institutions.CSUSM President Karen Haynes embraces this opportunity to make additional information on the University available and accessible. "Cal State San Marcos is proud to be one of the trailblazing universities presenting policymakers and the public with a more comprehensive picture of student achievement at our campus through the Student Achievement Measure project," she commented. "Prospective students and their families will be able to compare our institution to other schools while voters can be assured that we are safeguarding the public trust and contributing to the public good."The six sponsoring organizations include: the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), the American Council on Education (ACE), the Association of American Universities (AAU), the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), and the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU). Funding for the initial two years of the SAM project is provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York,  AASCU and APLU.Participating colleges and universities will begin to post their institution’s Student Achievement Measure on the website in fall 2013.