The issue of student retention and graduation from postsecondary institutions has grown in stature over the past decade. While the last 40 years of federal and state policies have focused largely on access to college, there is now a very real interest in not only getting students into college but also helping them earn baccalaureate and other degrees. This publication represents the final report of a study conducted by the Educational Policy Institute (EPI), in association with the AAAS Center for Advancing Science & Engineering Capacity, for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in 2008-12. The purpose of this paper is to identify and describe current and recent efforts at the institutional, state, regional, and national levels to collect individual student data for tracking progress in postsecondary education and to provide comprehensive information on promising and usable efforts to collect data. The authors found that the predominant view is that a national student unit record system would be a useful, if not critical, tool for public policy. Project activities included: (1) Reviewing available literature and information on issues and projects related to student unit record (SUR) data collection; (2) interviewing 20 experts from 16 organizations regarding SUR systems and "tracking" student activities and movements; (3) conducting a purposeful web-based survey of 819 individuals at institutions across the United States to gauge institutional data tracking ability and perceptions of current data issues and policy discussions; and (4) corresponding with project managers at several universities and leading organizations working on SUR projects. The hope is that this information assists the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the larger education constituencies in envisioning, if not developing, a better way of collecting and assessing student data and informing public policy. The authors found that the predominant view is that a national student unit record system would be a useful, if not critical, tool for public policy.