Posted on October 17, 2009

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Washington State Community and Technical Colleges Launch Washington State Student Completion Initiative

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced a $5.3 million grant to the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges to help launch the Washington State Student Completion Initiative, a four-year effort designed to dramatically increase community college completion rates across the state.

With the funding from the Gates Foundation and $800,000 from the Ford Foundation, the initiative will establish new programs while expanding successful pilot programs that address key barriers to student success. According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs for community college graduates will grow at a rate nearly twice as fast as the national average between 2006 and 2016. Nationally, only about 28 percent of first-time, full-time students at two-year institutions earn an associate degree within three years of enrolling.

As part of the initiative, several of the state programs that already serve as national models for boosting student completion will be expanded, including the state's I-BEST program, which combines basic academic courses and career skills classes to ensure that the least prepared students not only complete college but are competitive in the workforce upon graduation, and the Student Achievement initiative, which provides financial incentives for institutions based on improvements in student milestones that have demonstrated key linkages to college completion.

The initiative also will launch at least two new programs. To help students gain access to and complete the eighty courses most students must take to earn a degree, SBCTC and thirty-four colleges will incorporate best practices in instructional design and active learning to redesign and teach courses so as to improve completion rates. It is also hoped that the initiative will reduce total student costs through the use of open textbooks, course packs, existing library resources, and other open educational resources. In addition, to help the more than 56,000 community college students required to take remedial-level math courses, a coalition of seven colleges will make substantive changes in their math curricula, instructional practices, and teacher support and assessment.

"Low-income young adults rely on community and technical colleges to get the skills they need in today's economy, but many are struggling to succeed despite their best efforts," said Jan Yoshiwara, SBCTC's deputy executive director for education. "This partnership is funding some of the most innovative approaches to teaching and learning that will help us move more students further and faster to educational and economic success."

“Washington State Community and Technical Colleges Launch the Washington State Student Completion Initiative.” Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Press Release 10/14/09.

Primary Subject: Education
Secondary Subject(s): Higher Education
Location(s): Seattle, Washington

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