Dive Brief
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Grand Canyon University and Alhambra High School have collaborated to create Learning Lounge, a free after-school tutoring program for low-income students run by Grand Canyon University and staffed by 1,200 university students.
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During the 2016-17 school year, GCU tutors led more than 40,000 free tutoring sessions with 9,300 students at 73 local schools in the Greater Phoenix area – including newly added elementary schools. Instruction is available in specific subjects, as well as test prep for students looking to take the SAT or ACT to get into college.
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Many of the students served by the center come from families living below the poverty line. In partnership with the Grand Canyon University Foundation, a fund has been established to provide 800 full-tuition scholarships (200 per year) to high school students who come through the lab. Scholarship recipients are required to "pay it forward" and donate 100 volunteer hours to mentoring and tutoring in the lab once they become university students.
Dive Insight
As leaders in higher education and the workforce discover the proverbial adage, "it takes a village to raise a child," is true, more and more stories of collaboration are coming out as groups work together to bolster the success of the next generation of workers. Nationally, leaders are beginning to realize that the silos that divide institutions and communities away from one another need to be broken down. Some industry leaders suggest health care organizations team up with universities, universities work with high schools, and so forth. University of Texas System Chancellor William McRaven has made regional collaborations and information sharing a centerpiece of his system’s strategic vision.
In Dallas, local leaders have adopted an “all hands on deck” approach that connects student success, post-secondary education and economic development. From the local K-12 administrators to the community college district, a local four-year institution and local corporations, the whole Dallas region is investing in student success in a model which originated from industry leaders wanting to lease school space to provide their own training, and ended with an ongoing partnership.