Dive Brief:
- With program enrollment satisfactorily high and representatively diverse in the Tennessee Promise program, state and college leaders are shifting the focus onto retention and degree completion for the more than 16,000 students who started two-year programs this fall.
- Education Week reports Tennessee Promise officials are working to increase parent involvement in the process, tweak a mentoring program that supports Promise students, and expand structured student advising on campuses while community colleges are bulking up their own retention strategies.
- Mentors will meet high school seniors after they’ve already submitted their FAFSA, hopefully reducing the amount of attrition in student participants, and they will continue their relationships with students through their freshman year of college, where they also have greater advising supports than students outside of the program.
Dive Insight:
The shift in focus from access to success is happening across the country, Promise programs or not. Community colleges have historically been places open to all adults who want to learn, regardless of their credentials. Partly because of the population of students they serve and their educational goals, community colleges have had incredibly low completion rates. Just in the last year there has been a wave of comments from community college leaders and officials in Washington pushing a renewed focus on student outcomes.
Among the Tennessee Promise students, who were offered the first two years of college without tuition costs, officials also want to see high transfer rates to four-year programs. Additionally, this crop of students is expected to offer greater insights into high school quality, a connection other states will be able to draw as they implement their own programs.