Kudos to six WICHE states – Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, and Utah – that have joined the Complete College America Alliance of States, a new effort, created in 2009, to boost the country’s college completion rates. Nationally, 21 states have signed on with the alliance – which is receiving support and guidance from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Ford Foundation, Lumina Foundation for Education, and W.K. Kellogg Foundation. And those states aren’t just making empty promises. They’re agreeing to do the hard work that will effect a real change in graduation rates, now hovering around 40 percent for the nation’s 25- to 34-year olds and putting the U.S. in 12th place internationally in terms of this metric. Complete College America has spelled out six essential steps for states to take: set state and institutional graduation goals; uniformly measure progress; shift to performance funding; cut time to degree; transform the remediation process; and restructure the way education is delivered.

August 2010  | Share this on Twitter | Post this on Facebook