By: Belicia Smith, Executive Office Analyst
When C2C first started five years ago, we knew we had a statutory requirement to build a data system, release data insights, enable data sharing amongst partners, and promote data privacy and security. After 5 years, we successfully uncovered how to best fulfill this mandate that also empowers other agencies to meet their goals.
C2C Celebrates its 5-year Anniversary
As C2C celebrates its 5-year anniversary, close collaboration has been the nucleus of success, accomplishments, and major milestones. Key ingredients such as trust, transparency, and a robust governance structure established during the 18-month planning process are still embedded in the culture of C2C today, and ensure the right people are at the table throughout each and every aspect of C2C’s work.
Beyond Data Tools: Agency Partnerships
Every year in August, the C2C Governing Board votes on the content of C2C’s annual work plan, which serves as the blueprint of work the Office prioritizes. While the work plan includes C2C’s own data tools, such as the Student Pathways Dashboard, query builder, secure data enclave, and many more, it also includes ways to support data partners in achieving a range of data goals. Most of the work outlined in the work plan requires close collaboration and care, which the public doesn’t always have visibility into.
Successful collaborations between C2C and data partners relies on several important technical steps, including linking data across agencies that were not designed to be linked, validating the data for quality and accuracy, and applying the necessary procedures that protect and ensure individual privacy and comply with the applicable legal agreements. A strong collaborative foundation starts with discussing the need, reviewing the available data, gaining clarity on the goal, and establishing a shared understanding of all the components involved, and more.
Collaborations in Action
With California Student Aid Commission: Higher Education Reporting and Financial Aid Dashboard
C2C staff are committed to streamlining data reporting for data partners, iterating until the need is met, and finding ways for products to serve more than one purpose.
A recent example is C2C’s collaboration in providing California Student Aid Commission (CSAC) data reports needed for their required reporting and dashboard development. As California makes major investments in higher education, new legislation requires CSAC to report on the ROI of postsecondary outcomes and state aid utilization, such as the Cal Grant. This would require CSAC to establish three separate legal agreements with the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO), California State University (CSU), and the University of California (UC), which is a difficult and cumbersome process. The solution was for C2C and CSAC to collaborate, where C2C prepares files on behalf of the three public higher education entities, making the process more streamlined and efficient.
Together, C2C and CSAC worked together to develop a shared understanding of the need, the product, and identified key players across the higher education segments needing to be involved. Creating the reports was not easy. After reviewing C2C’s draft reports, CSAC was able to request changes that closer addressed their direct need. C2C staff were responsive to requests for changes and iterated until we got it right.
With C2C’s nimble and responsive infrastructure, we responded to change requests in a timely manner, which resulted in the delivery of not one, but three sets of files that CSAC can use for their dashboard designs and launch providing the public with insights on who uses state aid by institution and whether or not these students, persist, graduate, or transfer from these institutions. C2C made the institution-level data reports that fulfills CSAC’s unique statutory obligation publicly available, without duplicating existing legal agreements, privacy protected data linkages, and data sharing agreements. Additionally, these reports support the higher education segments with their legal requirements to submit student outcome data to CSAC. This leveraged C2C’s linked data and existing agreements that now supports CSAC in fulfilling their statutory reporting obligations more seamlessly and in their dashboard development.
With National Student Clearing House: Data Sharing Efficiencies with Partners
C2C staff are committed to finding creative solutions that increase efficiency and prevent data partners from doing duplicative work or reinventing the wheel.
C2C entered into a contract with the National Student Clearing House (NSC) to provide visibility into students from California who attend nonprofit and/or out-of-state schools to better understand pathways to and through higher education. C2C considered the various ways the NSC data can be helpful for our data partners to decide on the best way to ultimately maximize the use of the NSC contract.
A key example: In negotiating the NSC contract, C2C built in the ability to share NSC data with CDE and CSAC for their own important state-wide work, such as research, data insights, and reporting requirements. CDE holds a key role of preparing files and sending them to NSC to enable this collaboration. Along with CALPADS data, CDE uses the NSC data to calculate the College-Going Rate (CGR) to track students who enroll in postsecondary institutions in California, out-of-state institutions, or private institutions, and makes this data available to the public. By providing CDE access to NSC data through a collaborative partnership, CDE doesn’t have to enter into a separate contract with NSC, allowing for additional cost savings for the state.
Since C2C proactively built this function into the contract, other state-wide entities could access the data with no additional payments to NSC. For instance, CSAC can also access the data, as part of the same contract. Pairing CSAC data with NSC data C2C considers the importance for Local Educational Agencies (LEAs) to have access to the NSC data to better and more accurately evaluate and track their own high school students post high school graduation. In the next year, C2C plans to work on College and Career Data reports for LEAs that combine college-going data, NSC data, and earning data. This holds the potential to give every LEA access to NSC data so they can uncover a clear picture of how their students do after graduation.
With Scholar Investment Board: Student Outreach for College Funds
C2C’s FY 2025-26 annual work plan included Scholar Investment Board (SIB) sending data to C2C during the annual submission window which included data on CalKIDS accounts claimed. Diana Phuong, Data and Tools Advisory Board Member, submitted a proposal explaining how many students have money for college in a CalKIDS account but don’t know it, and how C2C can link siloed data to solve this problem. SIB knows which students have unclaimed accounts, but not where they go to college. And the higher education segments know which students are enrolled, but not who has unclaimed accounts.
C2C staff worked with both data partners to bridge the knowledge gap between SIB and the higher eds. This included creating and executing a plan, and creating the necessary legal agreements and technical solutions to ultimately determine where students with unclaimed accounts are enrolled in college. The result of this collaboration identified over 40,000 community college students and over $20 million in unclaimed scholarships. C2C provided this data report to the CCCCO to support targeted outreach for students to access the funds set aside to support their academic journeys.
“Through CalKIDS, we created free college scholarship funds for millions of children in the state. This new partnership will connect more community college students with the scholarships already set aside for them. California is making it easy and affordable for students to access their college and career dreams.”
Governor Gavin Newsom
Looking Ahead
We hope these collaborations will be mirrored across our data partners to meet their own goals. C2C serves as a shared utility for the state, reducing the need for duplicated data sharing structures and data linkages. C2C’s new 5-year strategic plan includes an objective that highlights our ability to “reduce the administrative, technical and operational burden of sharing data between state entities”. Data partners should be encouraged to communicate data needs with C2C to expand opportunities for collaborations and insights to inform the public. C2C has established an identity that ultimately reduces administrative burdens for students, state agencies, and has the potential to scale and make lives easier for many more.
In short, C2C is saving the state money on a national data contract our data providers can use; unlocking scholarship money students didn’t know was waiting for them; and making required data reporting more streamlined and efficient.