The CSU Graduation Initiative strives to raise the freshman six-year graduation rate by eight percentage points by 2015, and cut in half the existing gap in degree attainment by CSU’s under-represented minority (URM) students. Involving all 23 CSU campuses, the Graduation Initiative encourages campuses to establish graduation targets comparable to the top quartile of national averages of similar institutions, and to close the URM achievement gap through a series of carefully planned activities.
As a system, the CSU graduates just over 50% of its students in six years. Every interrupted education is a lost opportunity for the student, the student’s family and community, and the state. We face a moral imperative to serve our students better by helping more of them complete the college educations that prepare them for full and productive lives. The Graduation Initiative commits us to systematically discovering and dislodging the roadblocks to our students’ success, now and for the rest of their lives.