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Bill DeBaun

Senior Director, Data and Strategic Initiatives 

Pronouns: He/Him/His

Bill DeBaun is the National College Attainment Network's (NCAN’s) Senior Director, Data and Strategic Initiatives. In that role, he engages in policy research, data analysis, and resource development aimed at improving students’ college and career outcomes. DeBaun provides technical assistance around college access and success data usage, practice, and policy to community-based organizations, K-12 districts and schools, state agencies, and other key stakeholders. He currently co-leads the Postsecondary Pathways Project, which finds NCAN partnering with 15 state-level members to share resources and spur policy and practice changes.

DeBaun created and maintains NCAN's FAFSA Tracker, a nationally known project for tracking FAFSA completions at the national and state levels. Additionally, DeBaun leads NCAN’s Benchmarking Project, an on-going collaborative research effort with NCAN members that examines the enrollment and completion outcomes of students served by college access and success programs. Other activities include maintaining NCAN’s Data and Evaluation Toolkit and K-12 Resources Repository.

Previous projects at NCAN include the three-year To & Through Advising Challenge with districts and schools across the country and the Rural Student Success Initiative with 11 school districts in Texas. Prior to these, DeBaun oversaw the three-year Common Measures Learning Community, which convened 20 NCAN members in an effort to use data to improve program outcomes and scale program capacity.

Prior to joining NCAN, DeBaun was a policy and advocacy associate at the Alliance for Excellent Education in Washington, DC. DeBaun has a bachelor’s degree in political science, with a minor in education studies, from American University and a master’s degree in public policy from the George Washington University.