Other states are catching up with Tennessee Promise
CHICAGO — Cheers echoed through the ballroom of the Palmer House hotel Wednesday as the crowd celebrated a familiar champion.
Once again, Tennessee took center stage.
Hundreds of higher education leaders had gathered at the Chicago hotel for the annual Complete College America conference highlighting the nation’s most effective programming.
Gov. Bill Haslam and the state won an award for pushing programs like Tennessee Promise, a first-of-its-kind statewide full-tuition scholarship program for nearly every new high school graduate heading into community and technical colleges.
It was a scene that has become increasingly familiar.
Tennessee Promise previously drew praise from the Obama White House and states across the country. Tennessee Reconnect, a similar statewide tuition scholarship program for adults to go to college, was met with an unexpected surge of interest.
Those sweeping programs, along with fine-grain redesigns of remedial education and college funding models,
have made the Volunteer State a national exemplar.
“Tennessee’s been at the game of reform for a long time,” said Bruce Vandal, senior vice president at Complete College America. “What we’re seeing is innovative ideas take root there and actually get implemented.”
But, as more states have followed suit, creating their own statewide scholarships and reshaping remedial courses to keep vulnerable students from dropping out, Tennessee’s pioneering programs have become mainstream.
And there is certainly more work to do.
A recent analysis by the USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee, in partnership with the Education Writers Association, found that while college attainment has grown during Haslam’s tenure, Tennesseans in rural or low-income communities are still much less likely to have a college education. Students of color are much less likely to succeed than their white peers.
Haslam’s departure signals a transition for Tennessee college programming
As Haslam leaves office, and hands the baton to Gov.-elect Bill Lee, a new dynamic is taking hold. Nashville Public Library, 615 Church St.
“Tennessee’s been a leader, but the rest of the country is beginning to catch up,” Vandal said. “Tennessee, if they want to maintain that position, is going to have to be aggressive.”
So higher education officials are beginning to wrestle with a new question. What’s next? “We’ve done Promise, we’ve done Reconnect,” said Emily House, the chief policy and strategy officer at the Tennessee Higher Education Commission. “Now we really have to drill down.”
House said Tennessee’s next phase of college programming would be made with an eye on smaller subgroups that lag behind.
Students in poor pockets of the state face different challenges compared with affluent, white Williamson County students, for instance. No statewide program could ever address both.
“You don’t just have one initiative,” House said of the state’s new strategy. “You could have 95 initiatives.
Where: RSVP: Go to Haslameducation.tennessean.com