"Following the lead of President Obama, who stressed the importance of college graduation rates in his first address to Congress earlier this year, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on Tuesday announced more than $6.4 million in grants to national policy organizations for efforts to identify why so many young Americans drop out of college," Inside Higher Ed reports. "The grants announced Tuesday include $1.25 million for the American Enterprise Institute; $800,000 for the Center for American Progress; $1.5 million for the Center for Law and Social Policy; $675,000 for the College Board; $600,000 for Excelencia in Education; and $1.58 million for the Institute for Higher Education Policy. Initiatives that will be funded through the grants focus on developing policy proposals, collecting usable data, and promoting innovation on an institutional level."