Adriana Harrington is the Managing Director of Policy for ExcelinEd.
Tennessee has been on an intentional journey to build seamless pathways for its learners. A hallmark of this journey is how the state has focused on aligned, cross-sector strategies to build its policy framework. Let’s look at the Complete College Tennessee Act and the Tennessee Promise Scholarship Act—two legislative pillars of Tennessee’s learner pathway framework—to see how the Volunteer state has worked holistically to build on and off ramps to help all learners succeed in college and career.
In 2010 Tennessee passed the Complete College Tennessee Act (CCTA), designed to increase student postsecondary completion rates at technical and community colleges and universities. This comprehensive legislation was intended to ensure that postsecondary systems are structured to support (and rewarded by) student success. Specifically, the CCTA:
While each of these policies is impactful on their own, bundling them helps to simultaneously provide supports for a wide variety of learners and provides a solid foundation for future policies to leverage.
In 2014, Tennessee built on the success of the CCTA with the passage of the Tennessee Promise Scholarship Act, a last dollar scholarship for recent high school graduates to attend public community and technical colleges tuition-free. Tennessee Promise was one of the major parts of Governor Haslam’s postsecondary attainment initiative: The Drive to 55. Having strong gubernatorial leadership helped to combine policy investments and cross-agency shared priorities across the continuum to build sustained momentum in the work. The Drive to 55 grew to include items such Tennessee Reconnect, a the last dollar scholarship for adult learners to complete their degrees/reskill, and the Labor Education Alignment (LEAP) grants designed to increase regional partnerships. The state also took another approach to remediation by implementing the Seamless Alignment and Integrated Learning Support system in high school and co-requisite remediation in college when it became clear that remediation was still a major barrier for learners in the state. The policies showcased here, and others, have helped to grow Tennessee’s postsecondary attainment rate from 38% in 2015 to 43% currently.
But despite the progress that has been made over the past decade, Tennessee continues to see a gap in ensuring the successful postsecondary transition, persistence and eventual degree completion for too many of its high school graduates.
Student completion rates are barely 50 percent for White students and much lower among Black and Hispanic students. And among the students who are economically disadvantaged, just one in ten high school freshmen will successfully complete a postsecondary credential. All of this was before the pandemic, which we know has created even more challenges for families and students and exacerbated inequities across student groups. Yet, at the same time, almost all living wage jobs – both today and tomorrow – require some sort of postsecondary credential.
Earlier this year, the legislature passed three policies intended to address this gap:
Tennessee’s education to workforce history and current approach provides five valuable lessons for policymakers to consider:
Interested in partnering with ExcelinEd to take a step back and analyze policy strengths and gaps? Email Adriana@ExcelinEd.org. Want to learn more about the policies and approach in Tennessee? Email Bryce@TNScore.org We look forward to hearing from you!
