When Gov. Gavin Newsom recently proposed building a statewide data system to track students from pre-K through college and into the labor market, the empirical researcher in me said: “Finally.” Not because the new system, once established, will link between data sets that I can analyze — though that’s a welcome development for scholars everywhere — but because it’s an asset that California students can no longer do without. A state data system, done right, is one of the most important investments California can make in helping more students finish college. Education data on students, such as courses taken in K-12, test scores and credits earned, is essential to understanding student progress from “cradle to career.” Right now, however, students regularly fall through the cracks navigating between high school and college — and the disconnected data systems of each. Not surprisingly, the burden for students to manage their own educational trajectories is unevenly distributed and falls most heavily on those students whose families aren’t in a position to help them navigate. By asking students instead of institutions to bear that weight, we run the risk of enabling the persistence of educational inequity. A real data system could allow California’s public colleges and universities to access valuable information about students’ educational trajectories to more effectively communicate with K-12 about college preparation, more efficiently account for credit accumulation and, ultimately, help more students graduate. From my office window at UC Davis, I can see backpack-bearing students moving with purpose across the quad. Though the extra weight is invisible, we’ve asked too many of them to carry their education data along with their books and aspirations and to be their own compass through the labyrinth that might lead to a degree. It’s past time for California, the technology capital of the world, to relieve them of that load.