CLC shares student success gains driven by a campus-wide culture of data
Published March 19, 2026
For many community college students, finishing a degree doesn’t often come down to motivation. The decision comes down to whether the next step is clear, whether the right course is available at the right time and whether the college responds quickly enough when momentum starts to slip. College of Lake County (CLC) is sharing results in a partnership with ZogoTech that reflects what happens when those moments are treated as measurable, actionable and worth building around.
CLC's approach centers on influencing the points where students often lose early momentum: registration, early gateway courses and the first year, to impact long-term outcomes. CLC partners with ZogoTech to enable this work, using their Data Analytics Platform to bring together data from the systems used across campus into a centralized source of truth and transform it into community college-ready insight. That foundation also integrates CLC’s institutional data with National Student Clearinghouse data.
CLC’s multi-year effort to scale a culture of evidence — pairing student success strategy with consistent, shared data and broader access to insight — has translated into measurable gains, including:
- First-to-second term retention increased from 74% to 79%, with reported gains for Black students (+8 points), Latinx students (+4) and part-time students (+7).
- Three-year graduation increased 10 points, from 29% to 39% for first-time, full-time, credential-seeking students.
- Graduates increased by 16%, including a 40% rise in graduates from workforce-aligned certificate programs.
- Credentials awarded since FY19 increased 71%.
CLC’s sustained progress was recently reaffirmed through its recertification as a 2026 Achieving the Dream Leader College of Distinction, recognizing measurable gains and a strong culture of data-informed continuous improvement.
“I use data in my work each day to monitor key indicators of student access, progress and success,” said Strategic Advancement Assistant Vice President Nick Branson. “Students cannot afford for us to guess at how to improve our institution. It is the data, compiled and made meaningful through the partnership with ZogoTech, that allows us to make evidence-informed, strategic decisions that maximize student success.”