Tennessee is on the right track to improve college graduation rates but faces a big challenge – at least that’s what the CEO of a national education foundation told lawmakers Wednesday.
Jamie Merisotis of the Lumina Foundation told the Senate Education Committee that Tennessee must dramatically increase the number of people who go on to school after the twelfth grade.
“By 2018, more than half of the jobs in Tennessee will require some education beyond high school. Doesn’t mean that they’ll all need bachelor’s degree, but they’ll need a post-secondary degree, or credential.”
Only 31 percent of working age Tennesseans have some post-secondary degree. The national figure is 38 percent.
Merisotis says that if the state doesn’t produce a more educated work force more quickly, Tennessee won’t be able to compete for good jobs. And he says having more education is a matter of holding on to a common part of the American dream.
“If you want to be a part of the middle class, you’ve got to go to college. Because otherwise, your chances of being poor are quite high without it.”
The Lumina Foundation has a goal of 60 percent of Americans with a college degree by the year 2025.
Officials with the foundation say in addition to increasing the number of college educated workers, Tennessee needs to speed up the time it takes students to go through college.
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The Lumina Foundation is based in Indianapolis and claims more than $1 billion in assets. The foundation works with employers, community colleges and advocacy groups working with low income students.
Merisotis says the foundation is looking toward a more business-like way of getting students through the college process.
“Let’s make sure that students get financial aid for 120 credits to get a bachelor’s degree, not more than because they can sort of knock around in the system for a while, and end up not being very successful because they’re not focused, they’re not targeted. We need them to get in, see their job as getting their college education, and get out, so that they can be successful.”
One of the Tennessee legislature’s bills dealing with the HOPE Scholarship lottery addresses that issue – making the scholarship available for 120 credit-hours, rather than for a certain number of years.
In Tennessee public schools, 120 credit-hours is usually the standard for earning a bachelor’s degree.
One way to speed up degree attainment would be to treat students in the same curriculum as a “cohort,” a group going through the same steps at the same time, Merisotis says. Examples of such curricula include the military academies – but…
“People learn in groups. They learn from each other, from peers, as well as the person who’s providing the instruction. And those cohorts are a good way of making sure that students push each other, and see themselves through to getting that credential.”
The Lumina Foundation posted their CEO’s testimony to the Senate Education Committee.
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