President Barack Obama's address to the Joint Session of Congress set forth a postsecondary education agenda focused on access and success. In Illinois, as the high school graduating Class of 2002 moves further away from their days in Illinois public education and they begin to take their place in society, trends have begun to emerge as to their participation in postsecondary education and patterns of completion. Through the use of student unit-record longitudinal data for this cohort, the authors have been able to observe and reflect on these trends. It is the authors' hope that the descriptive nature of this study provide both the foundation for action and new avenues for exploration into the enrollment and completion puzzle that is postsecondary education for the students from Illinois' K-12 system. (Contains 15 figures and 2 tables.)