In 2007 -- long before President Obama pushed to make college attainment a national priority and three years before the phrase "completion agenda" first appeared in these pages -- a group of public university systems put themselves on the spot.
Working with (and to some extent prodded by) Education Trust, which promotes the educational success of low-income and minority students, the 22 systems of two-year and four-year colleges and universities committed to increasing their attainment levels, in large part by closing the gaps in performance between underrepresented students and their peers within a decade. ...