Community College of Beaver County has joined with its counterparts in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties in a national initiative to assist more community college students in succeeding.

For the next year, the successes and failures of students who enrolled in almost any class or program at the college will be put under an analytical microscope. Gender, race and age statistics will be gathered, as will information about each student's educational background.

The initiative is called Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count. CCBC, the Community College of Allegheny County and Westmoreland County Community College are joining 58 other community colleges across the country starting or already participating in it.

The colleges each received a $50,000 grant from Lumina Foundation for Education to launch the initiative. The Heinz Endowments then will fund programs the colleges may need to implement to correct deficiencies.

The aim is to improve the success rate of community college students, probably the single most transient student population in the country.

Dr. Joe Forrester, CCBC president, said the grant will be used to analyze student data to see how to improve student retention, progression and success.

The grant goes for research with an eye toward submitting an application by March for full program implementation, which would amount to $50,000 a year for four years.

An educated guess on his part is that the study will show that CCBC needs to add catch-up courses in math, reading and writing. Also, there might be an adjustment in placement cutoff scores for various programs.

"My thinking is that at this state of the game we'll need to develop additional courses in developmental studies," Dr. Forrester said. "We have some of it now and I think what we're going to find is we're going to need more of it."

Because community colleges have an open-door policy, they often admit students with limited high school-level skills. But to become successful in, say, the school's popular nursing program, placement officers will advise students that they need developmental skills courses.

Given the demand, the range of such offerings might have to be delineated further.

"Instead of making up four or five grade levels at a time," Dr. Forrester said, "it'll be one or two grade levels at a time."

In the case of WCCC, students will be asked for the first time what their goal is in taking a class or course of study from the community college. It will be a sort of gauge to measure whether the student feels his or her own personal dream has been met.

WCCC President Steven C. Ender said becoming part of the Achieving the Dream initiative is important because it will help community colleges find out their own strengths and weaknesses and what they can do to help students succeed.

Educated people are vital for thriving communities, he said.

"Almost any occupation calls for some [college-level work]," Dr. Ender said. For many students, the local community college is the most realistic way to get it.

Like community colleges across the country, the WCCC student population is a little older than the population of a typical four-year college. The mean age for Westmoreland Community College is 28, Dr. Ender said.

Also, as at other community colleges, many are first-generation college students, work full- or part-time jobs and have academic, financial or personal challenges. More than a third of all community college students have children.

The study team will begin with all students who enrolled in fall 2005 and will seek out those who did not return. The team will want to know why: Did the student want to take only one course? Or did personal, financial or educational obstacles make returning just too hard to do?

Dr. Daniel Obara, vice president for academic affairs and student services, is leading the study team. He said in addition to gathering hard data, they plan to hold focus group meetings with not only students but faculty, staff and community members to get to the root of problems.

The college has tried to level the educational playing field all along by offering remedial courses, but the new initiative will take things much further.

"Most [students] have to take placement tests," he said. Then, if deficiencies are discovered, the students must take one of the mathematics, reading or writing developmental courses.

Once those are mastered, the students move on to what are called "gateway" courses, basic college level, 101-type courses nearly every college freshman anywhere must take and pass.

Students can enroll in the very specialized certificate program, which requires 15 to 23 credits; a diploma program that consists of 30 credit hours in a specific career; or associate degrees in either arts or applied science, which are 60 credit hours and include general education requirements and degree-specific electives.

If students don't succeed in finishing whatever program they sought to complete initially, the Achieving the Dream team wants to be able to say why.

It's possible the school was at fault because it didn't recognize that a student came in with some educational deficiencies that should have been caught in the first place, Dr. Ender said. Maybe the cutoff score for the placement tests is too low or the high school's curriculum too substandard to prepare the student for college work.

At least the college will know how to remedy the situation.

"We're going to see data we won't like," Dr. Ender said.

But the initiative will guide the college into change that's needed and will help students for many years to come.