INCREASING GRADUATION RATES

If we think realistically, we would assume that graduation rates at Tennessee community colleges will lag behind enrollment in the state’s Tennessee Promise last-dollar tuition program.

If that’s the case, we don’t believe there’s a need to panic yet that colleges — and especially community colleges — haven’t seen a recent uptick in graduation. Indeed, with the free tuition program allowing many first-generation college students to attend, graduation rates could dip before they rise.

Under Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, the state has invested so heavily in higher education with programs like Tennessee Promise and Tennessee Reconnect that many people may automatically believe such forward-thinking will result in immediate graduation success.

It hasn’t happened yet.

But graduation is important. In fact, access to scholarships, financial aid and programs such as Tennessee Promise isn’t much use if the students using them don’t finish what they begin.

Although the possibility of students succeeding who never would have gone to college outweighed other concerns, we worried at the outset of Haslam’s last-dollar tuition program that a number of students would use their scholarship to have their fifth year of high school, to basically postpone the reality of responsibility by attending school on the state’s government’s dime.

However, what state officials can say — according to data released last week — is that due to Tennessee Promise, more students have filed their Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) in Tennessee than any other state for the last three years. They also can say that 63 percent of Tennessee Promise students who enrolled in the fall of 2015 re-enrolled in the fall of 2016. That compares favorably to the 42 percent re-enrollment rate over the same period of non-Tennessee Promise students who were first-time community college freshmen.

College officials are not unaware, though, of the need to increase the rate of graduation, and Haslam has said he intends to make that a focus of his last year in office.

Some higher education officials have said the key in moving students toward graduation is the closer tracking of data — that the earlier problems can be spotted, the sooner supports can be put in place. Saying it and doing, though, are two different things.

But the student also must shoulder much of the responsibility. Everyone can use a little help, but if a student is not fully invested in his or her education, all the help or intervention in the world won’t matter.