TN works to stem college dropout crisis

Despite new plan, there’s no quick fix to longtime barriers

Getting students into college isn’t the problem in Tennessee.

It’s keeping them there.

Of every 100 college freshmen in this state, only 45 will have degrees by the time they turn 26, and the longer the wait for a diploma, the longer the odds that it’s going to happen at all.

The governor and legislature passed an ambitious http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100121/NEWS02/100121019/2066/NEWS03“>plan to improve the graduation rate in a state with one of the most lackluster educational attainment rates in the nation. The idea is to eliminate as many barriers to graduation as possible — from course credits that don’t transfer, to university-level remedial classes that could be taught for less money, and with less stress, at a community college.

But the fact is, most Tennessee colleges and universities have been working for years to improve their graduation rates, only to find that there are no quick fixes to the problems that can come between a student and a degree.

There’s nothing the legislation can do about the fact that tuition goes up every year in Tennessee, or that many students here are first-generation college students, or that the real-life pressures of families and jobs can pull older students out of the classroom for good.

At http://www.volstate.edu/“>Volunteer State Community College in Gallatin, Caleb Hendricks sat at a lunchroom table with three classmates, sharing one textbook among them.

Two weeks into the semester, one of them finally had enough money to spring for the book.

“The biggest problem (with higher education) is paying for it,” said Hendricks, a freshman working toward a degree in management information systems.

After high school, he worked for a few years before deciding that a job at Home Depot might be nice for now, but it wasn’t what he wanted for his life’s career. The halls and classrooms at Vol State are crowded with students like Hendricks who are enrolling in college in record numbers as the economy pushes people out of a job and back to school.

Many of these new students have been out of high school too long to qualify for http://www.tn.gov/CollegePays/mon_college/hope_scholar.htm“>HOPE scholarships, and many earn too much money at their day jobs to qualify for financial aid. Those end up going to school part time, or at night, or dropping out for a few semesters to earn extra money for tuition.

Going to school part time takes time. And the longer it takes to graduate, the more likely it is that life will get in the way and derail a student’s college plans permanently.

“I’ve had students bring their little kids to classes because they couldn’t get child care,” said Leonard Assante, chairman of the Department of Communication at Volunteer State.

Volunteer State casts a wide net to try to keep students in class — from teachers like Assante, willing to let a class double as an emergency day-care center, to intensive advising sessions for at-risk students and peer-to-peer tutoring for students who don’t respond to traditional remedial classes.

“If a student has a point of contact, they have a much better chance of staying in school,” Assante said.

Community college redo

Gov. Phil Bredesen’s emphasis remains on colleges, universities and degrees. He wants to lure more high-tech industries to Tennessee. High-tech industries want highly skilled workers.

According to 2008 estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau, workers with a bachelor’s degree earn $26,000 more than those with just a high school diploma. Nationwide, just 29 percent of adults age 25 and older have a four-year degree or higher. In Tennessee, the rate is just 21 percent.

When Bredesen’s legislation passed last week goes into effect, Tennessee’s community colleges — where graduation rates have dipped as low as 5 percent at some schools — will get a dramatic overhaul.

All 13 community colleges in the state will begin teaching identical core courses, with teachers working off identical syllabuses, in the hope of producing students who can transfer their credits to any other school in the state system.

Right now, more than half the students who start college in Tennessee need remedial course work, repeating the same math, reading and writing courses they took in high school. Universities will get out of the business of remedial education.

Instead, students who need remedial course work will be steered into community college, where classes are smaller and tuition is half the price of university courses. Universities, meanwhile, will be able to free their professors and resources to focus on more advanced courses.

This sounds fine in theory to the community colleges, where more than 60 percent of students already take remedial coursework, and the schools have spent years fine-tuning their outreach efforts. But Tennessee is in the middle of a budget crisis, and it will cost money to provide the teaching staff, equipment and classroom space to handle the thousands of new students who will be diverted into the two-year schools.

Even with online classes and a recent building boom, schools like http://www.nscc.edu/“>Nashville State Community College already have so many extra students that some professors have been forced to hold classes in hallways.

Another component of the plan that worries higher education officials is basing funding on graduation rates instead of enrollment rates. Some question whether diplomas awarded are a fair measure of a school’s success.

Not everyone who signs up for a college class is looking for a degree. But every student who takes a few classes, then transfers to another school; every retiree who enrolls for a few recreational course credits; and every high school student taking Advanced Placement classes at the community college — every one of them drives down the graduation rate. All go down on paper as students who enrolled but failed to graduate.

“The question is, how are they going to measure this? All of our schools are different, with different challenges,” said Tennessee Board of Regents Chancellor Charles Manning.

The Tennessee chapter of the American Association of University Professors opposes the governor’s plan.

Many professors are leery of the changes the state will be implementing in 2011. The idea of teaching off a uniform syllabus isn’t a very attractive prospect for teachers used to being in control of their classrooms. Many also worry that the emphasis on graduation rates will push schools to dumb down the curriculum and push unprepared students out the door with meaningless degrees.

Tech centers praised

Every school in the state has been working for years to improve retention and graduation rates. But the schools Bredesen holds up as a model for the rest of the higher education system aren’t colleges or universities at all.

The http://www.tbr.state.tn.us/schools/default.aspx?id=2654“>Tennessee Technology Centers are the state’s low-key, low-cost pathways to a career without a college degree. In anywhere from a few months to a year and a half, students can earn certification in everything from welding to cosmetology to licensed practical nursing.

Students can take their credits from the tech centers and apply them toward an associate’s degree if they choose. But in a state where 80 percent of jobs do not require a college degree, many simply earn their certification and get to work. The graduation rate at the state’s technology centers tops 70 percent. The average university graduation rate in Tennessee is 45 percent, and community colleges average in the teens.

“There’s a perception out there that if you don’t go to college, you’re a failure,” said Mark Lenz, director of the Tennessee Technology Center in Nashville. “There are jobs out there that require skills, not degrees. If you get an associate’s (degree) and can’t do anything with it, what good is it?”

In a workshop at the Tennessee Technology Center in Nashville, surrounded by the spitting blue sparks of arc welders, recent high school graduate Tyler Norman showed off his latest creation — a whimsical toy soldier with a swiveling gun, welded together out of bits of scrap metal.

His high school grades seemed to rule out college as an option, at least for now, he said. But he’s been thriving in the hands-on program, turning his newfound skills into an unexpected talent for art.

Would he ever consider going on to college? “Maybe eventually,” Norman said, “but right now, I’m sticking with what I love, which is this.”

But it’s more than the graduation rate the governor admires about the tech centers. Once a student chooses to enroll in a certification course at a state-run tech center, “that’s the last decision that student will be making for a while,” Bredesen recently told reporters.

The schools choose the course work and schedule a learning day that runs from morning until evening. Everything the students learn is put in the context of their future careers. If they’re learning trigonometry, it’s because they’ll be using it every day on the job as aviation mechanics, say, or computer drafting technicians.

It remains to be seen whether the TTC model can be applied to community colleges or universities, where both the student body and course offerings are much larger and more diverse.