Our Alliance — now 46 members strong — is leading a nationwide movement.

A college degree is critical to increasing opportunity in this country. Our Alliance of states, systems, institutional consortia, and partners are working hand-in-hand to make that a reality for more students. They are collaborators, data miners and experimenters united by their commitment to taking bold steps with the goal of transforming the narrative of college completion.

LINDA CLARK: THE IDAHO STORY

When Idaho first adopted an attainment goal – 60 percent of Idahoans between the ages of 26 and 35 with a postsecondary credential or degree by 2020 – there was no clear plan for how to reach it.

“The efforts were not as focused on things that can really make a difference,” said Linda Clark, Idaho State Board of Education president. “It was a little more complicated than it should have been. Looking back, CCA helped us begin to focus on the specifics.”

When Clark was appointed ISBOE president in 2015, Idaho had already joined the CCA Alliance. State institutions had started Corequisite Support in English and were seeing improvements in withdrawal rates from developmental courses. In most other ways, Clark says institutions were essentially “embarking on their own plans.”

That all changed in October 2017 when a high education task force convened by Governor Butch Otter recommended full implementation of the Game Changers in its final report. Clark says that recommitment to the strategies and to the CCA Alliance gave statewide efforts to improve student success new momentum and focus.

With the help of CCA content experts, Idaho has begun a “full court press” implementation of Corequisite Support for math. Institutions have also started implementing Math Pathways, creating a shared meta majors framework and preparing to launch a new 15 to Finish campaign called Think 30. Materials for the initiative encouraging students to take 30 credits each academic year will be sent to high school seniors and adult learners that the state is hoping to re-engage.

While Clark describes the Game Changers as the key elements for success, she says being part of a national Alliance that shares best practices and solutions for challenges is incredibly valuable.

“I think the interactions that we have with the other Alliance members and CCA staff – it’s a package that’s been very important to us and vital in our efforts. You learn a tremendous amount interacting with people who are in the trenches. We’re all in this together. There’s really power in being part of a movement.”

Idaho is now poised to make even more gains as one of CCA’s new Momentum Pathways states. “This is a tremendous partnership. CCA does everything they can for states and institutions to advance these goals.”

Our Alliance

Nearly ten years ago, the CCA Alliance was made up of 19 states across the country. Now at 46 Members, including states, regions and institutional consortia, the Alliance is growing rapidly and helping many more students graduate college.

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Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Hawaii Puerto Rico
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EARLY WORK, EARLY ADOPTERS

Stan and CCA recognized my work as a potential Game Changer nine years ago, which ultimately became Guided Pathways Systems. We made it into a robust tool to guide students towards their academic credential effectively, while keeping exploration possible.

Gary Rodwell Lead Programmer, STAR Academic Pathway System, University of Hawaii

Indiana was one of the first states to join the Complete College America Alliance. Commissioner and Fellow Teresa Lubbers reflects on committing to CCA’s mission and strategies nearly a decade ago.

Teresa Lubbers Indiana Commissioner for Higher Education

Amy Baldwin joined the Arkansas Department of Higher Education just as good news arrived. In August 2011, the ADHE was selected to receive one of ten $1 million Innovation Challenge grants from CCA. Baldwin was tasked with coordinating all aspects of the grant intended to fund implementation of the Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) for reading and writing at nine participating institutions. With an 18-month grant period, there was no time to waste.

“Everybody had to meet in October and make plans pretty quickly. We were beholden to rolling out stuff the fall of 2012,” said Baldwin. “I’ll be honest – people were freaking out. It was so helpful to have leadership at CCA not bristle with that pushback and say, ‘you’ve got to move quickly and make quick decisions. We know what works.’”

Baldwin says the experience was both exciting and daunting. CCA content experts attended statewide meetings to provide support to implementation efforts, even after the grant had ended. 

There have been several lasting effects of CCA’s investment in Arkansas. Among them, a continued willingness by participating four-year institutions to work together and share best practices.

Baldwin says it’s satisfying to see Arkansas recognized as part of an elite group of early adopters of Corequisite Support. In her current role at the University of Central Arkansas, which began implementing Corequisite College Algebra in 2015, she gets to see firsthand how the work that began all those years ago is still having an impact on students.

I just talked to one of my students taking Coreq math who said, ‘I’ve always hated taking math, and I have an A in college algebra. I have so much more confidence with how to do this.’ Those kinds of things pull at the heartstrings and you know you’re doing good work.

Amy Baldwin Director of Department of Student Transitions, University of Central Arkansas

Barbara Damron: Working Together in New Mexico

Need
Buy-In
Learning
Future

Critical Need for Collaboration

We started addressing the issue of remediation in New Mexico three years ago. We have pushed all of our higher education institutions who provide remediation to move away from traditional to alternative remediation models, specifically Corequisite Support. We’ve done a number of webinars on Corequisite Support, and some of our institutions have begun implementing it. In every single presentation I give to the legislature or on a statewide platform, I talk about what the success we can provide our students with the Corequisite approach to remediation. Complete College America has the data and the evidence to show that Coreq works, and we are setting the groundwork to adopt it statewide. Because we are such a decentralized higher education system in New Mexico (we have 21 governing boards and 10 advisory boards for our public higher education institutions!), getting anything done at the statewide level takes major collaboration.

Development Education Day

The annual development education day on the Alamogordo campus in February 2018 provided us with the perfect opportunity to offer a full day of education around this strategy. The real beauty of the event was that it was actually requested by the developmental education faculty themselves. Often, we have to create grassroots buy-in amongst the faculty, but that was not the case this time. They wanted to learn more about Coreq and how they could implement it. We sent out letters to all 31 of our public institutions about the event. We tried very hard to inform our institutions about the event – to garner excitement – and it worked. We had over 100 people in attendance from all over the state. We’re the fifth largest land mass in the United States, so many of them traveled quite a distance to participate. The discussion day was extremely successful. Many connections and plans were made and faculty were excited about implementing Corequisite Support at their institutions.

The Governance Summit

The Governance Summit on April 19 was focused on our governance structure and its impact on student success. As I mentioned, New Mexico has a very decentralized higher education system. To generate buy-in for an initiative, I have to visit 31 campuses and engage 31 different presidents and boards. It dilutes our efforts and makes it far more difficult to launch an initiative than it would be in a state with a more centralized governance system like Indiana.

The focus of the Governance Summit was “Learning from the Best.” Higher education leaders from Arizona, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Montana, Colorado and Oregon led presentations on the governance models in their states and their college completion efforts. CCA Senior Vice President Sarah Ancel also talked about best practices around governance. On the second day of the summit, there were several simultaneous forums where groups could ask questions and share feedback.

Looking Forward

Over the summer, I made a formal recommendation on New Mexico’s higher education governance structure. The goal of the Governance Summit was to help pave the way for a more streamlined system that will allow us to peel back the layers and move forward with student success efforts, like statewide implementation of 15 to Finish.

I’m proud to be a member of the Complete College America Board of Directors. CCA has been a game changer on the national landscape of higher education. The organization has identified best practices, proven that they work, and is helping states to implement them. With CCA’s partnership, there is much more we want to do for the 134,000 students in our public higher education system. The Governance Summit was an important step in that process.

New CCA Alliance Member: Inland Empire

The Inland Empire in California became the 45th member of the CCA Alliance in 2018. Comprising San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, the Inland Empire is plagued with poor student outcomes. By joining CCA, higher education and economic development leaders in the region are committing to improving degree attainment for the more than 200,000 students represented by IE institutions.

The Georgia Story

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The Beginning

Complete College Georgia (CCG) was started in 2011 by Governor Nathan Deal as a statewide effort to increase the proportion of people earning a high-quality degree or credential in Georgia. The University System of Georgia (USG), the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG), and the Georgia Department of Education have jointly led the initiative, working towards CCG’s overall goal to improve college access and graduation.

To reach this goal, CCG first sought to understand the barriers that often hinder college completion. Many of these were outlined in Georgia’s Higher Education Completion Plan in 2012, and include college readiness and access, affordability and cost, shortening time to degree, restructuring instruction and learning, and transforming remediation.

In addition, CCG asked institutions to prioritize identifying workforce and skill demands across the state that they could address. Recently, USG introduced its nexus degree, a new credential that focuses on “the connections between industry, skilled knowledge and hands-on experience in high-demand career fields.”

Implementation

Campuses across Georgia created individualized plans aligned to CCG’s overall state goal, and have been implementing best practices shown to increase student success. These include 15 to Finish, Guided Pathways, and Corequisite Support, and more.

Throughout implementations, the CCG team has assisted each institution with its Completion Plan and Completion Update. This includes monitoring progress and helping each institution submit an Action Plan to the Governor’s office annually.

In addition, CCG has encouraged campus innovation in increasing student success through its innovation grants. These grants have allowed campuses to experiment with new ideas or further advance strategies, and the findings have informed statewide work.

USG and TCSG, as leaders in the CCG work, have also implemented several strategies across their campuses. They have implemented the elements of Guided Pathways, including academic maps, metamajors, and proactive advising. These large implementations contribute to best practices and the scale of work across the state.

Current Opportunities

USG is also ensuring that system-level policies align with and support completion efforts. It has created a transparent process to review policies that could hinder progress, and proposed solutions that still retain academic rigor. As a result, the system has implemented policy changes around learning support, academic renewal and required high school curriculum.

Currently, USG institutions are in the process to implement Momentum Year, a CCA Game Changer strategy that helps students reach certain milestones in their first year that have been proven to increase their overall success. These milestones include every student beginning in a metamajor or specific program, taking core math and English classes, nine credits in the area of study and 30 credits total within the first year. USG started this process in spring 2018 at a Momentum Summit, a system-wide event that convened cabinet-level teams from all 26 USG institutions to craft an 18-month Momentum Year implementation plan specific to that campus. Now eight months in, the USG system has entirely replaced traditional remediation with Corequisite Support and institutions are well on their way to ensuring that all students make a purposeful choice of a program or area of study by fall 2019.

In addition, USG was one of four systems in the country to receive a $2.1 million Strong Start to Finish grant in early 2018, which will support the expansion of Momentum Year for all 26 institutions within the system.