8/9/2011
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin announced today that West Virginia has been awarded $1 million to further policy innovations and reforms aimed at significantly increasing college completion. The grant is provided by Complete College America as part of its national Completion Innovation Challenge grant competition.
A national non-profit organization focused solely on working with states to significantly boost college completion, Complete College America established the grant completion program to inspire and enhance state efforts. Funding support for the grant program was provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
"West Virginia's competitive selection from over thirty states, and chosen as one of ten states to receive this $1 million grant, is outstanding," said Gov. Tomblin. "This funding gives us an additional enhancement in the state's overall effort to assist students in obtaining the education they need to prepare for the future they want. The road to a college degree is not always easy and this grant should be encouraging to everyone who works hard to help young people achieve their goal."
Governors from all 50 states were invited to submit proposals to win one of ten $1 million, 18-month implementation grants for innovative, high-impact college completion initiatives designed to enhance student success and close attainment gaps for traditionally underrepresented populations. Thirty-three states ultimately entered the highly competitive contest. As a winning state, West Virginia was determined to have one of the nation's most promising strategies to smooth and shorten pathways to college completion for all students.
"Governor Tomblin gets it: doing more of the same will not boost student success or get West Virginia the additional college graduates it must have to be competitive," said Complete College America President Stan Jones. "It's long past time for bold innovation in higher education to remove unnecessary obstacles to success, fix broken policies that hold students back, speed achievement and redesign pathways to college graduation for the new majority of students who must balance work and school."
"West Virginia's innovative plan to transform remediation promises to significantly increase college completion, saving students precious time and money - and giving taxpayers more of what they expect from their hard-earned investments in higher education: college grads," added Jones.
With the Complete College America grant, West Virginia will:
- Develop standard learning objectives for developmental math and English courses which will clearly identify what students need to know before entering college level course work, set clear expectations for students, and provide a common tool for faculty to use;
- Develop modular developmental math and English classroom and online curricula that enable students to focus on skill development only in the areas where they are deficient;
- Develop credit-bearing introductory stretch math and English courses that will be available to any college in West Virginia and serve those students in need of some remediation but enable them to earn credits toward graduation right away.
This is the first year for the Complete College America grant program.
Contact Information
Jacqueline Proctor
304-558-2000