In collaboration with Complete College America and Chicago-based nonprofit One Million Degrees, Cuyahoga Community College rolls out a new student support program designed to help students stay enrolled, graduate and launch careers
CLEVELAND, Aug. 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) — the first and one of the largest community colleges in Ohio — announced today that it is joining a growing national effort to strengthen community college student success by expanding access to proven, holistic support models that help students persist, complete credentials, and transition into careers that drive long-term economic mobility. Through a collaboration with Chicago-based nonprofit One Million Degrees (OMD) and Complete College America, Tri-C will implement an evidence-based wraparound student support model designed to address critical barriers to college completion for community college students across the region.
“Tri-C students are deeply committed to their education, often while balancing work, family, and other significant responsibilities,” said Michael Baston, J.D., Ed.D., president of Tri-C. “By joining this national initiative, we are strengthening our ability to create the conditions where every student can succeed on their path to earning a credential of value and building long-term economic mobility. This partnership will bring a proven model—grounded in deep data and research—to better support students across Northeast Ohio from enrollment through completion and into the workforce.”
Community colleges enroll nearly 40 percent of all undergraduates nationwide, yet fewer than half of students complete a degree within three years. These challenges disproportionately affect students from low-income backgrounds and students balancing work, family, and financial responsibilities — even as more than 70 percent of new jobs projected over the next decade will require education or training beyond high school.
To help address these challenges, Tri-C is joining the second cohort of OMD | CCA National Expansion and Transformation (NEXT), an expansion of an established partnership between One Million Degrees (OMD) and Complete College America (CCA) focused on removing barriers to student success and college completion for community colleges in multiple regions across the country.
The program pairs direct, holistic student support with institutional technical assistance designed to help colleges sustain and expand effective practices. Through the partnership, One Million Degrees brings a research-backed model of student support that includes proactive coaching, academic guidance, career navigation, and financial assistance. The model has been rigorously evaluated through a long-running research collaboration with the University of Chicago’s Inclusive Economy Lab, which found that students receiving OMD support are significantly more likely to persist, earn credits, and complete degrees than their peers and achieve stronger long-term employment outcomes.
Over the next year, Tri-C will integrate the One Million Degrees program model into their first-year student experience, with students beginning the program in fall 2026 and supported through graduation. The college will receive institutional capacity-building and training from One Million Degrees to implement the program and support long-term implementation beyond the initial pilot phase.
“Community college students bring extraordinary drive and talent to their education, often balancing career, family and financial commitments, and community colleges have long been the engine of opportunity that helps that talent turn into a degree and a career,” said Dr. Aarti Dhupelia, CEO of One Million Degrees. “Through more than two decades of this work at OMD, we’ve seen what’s possible when students are surrounded by the right mix of academic, career, and financial support. We’re excited to extend our impact with institutions like Tri-C to ensure more students have access to a model that delivers results and helps more learners achieve their education and career aspirations.”
Through this partnership, participating colleges will also receive hands-on coaching and technical assistance from Complete College America to help ensure the model can be implemented effectively and sustained over time. CCA will work closely with college leadership to strengthen the data, metrics, policy, and AI governance needed to deliver coordinated student support at scale, while also providing guidance on strategic finance and long-term operational planning.
“The real measure of higher education’s success is whether the systems around students help them finish what they start–and on a timely basis that works for them,” said Dr. Yolanda Watson Spiva, president of Complete College America. “Too often, outdated student financial aid models and institutional policy leave that to chance. This partnership is what it looks like when a college decides not to leave it to chance — investing in the data, the coaching capacity, the long-term planning that actually gets students to a degree.”
About One Million Degrees: One Million Degrees (OMD) is a Chicago-based higher education nonprofit dedicated to accelerating community college students’ progress on pathways to economic mobility. Through a research-proven model combining intensive coaching, career readiness, and financial support, OMD has helped thousands of students persist, graduate, and launch their careers with a foundation for long-term success. Learn more at www.onemilliondegrees.org.
About Cuyahoga Community College: Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C®) opened in 1963 as Ohio’s first community college. It remains one of Ohio’s largest public community college and offers the lowest tuition in the state. Over the past 60 years, Tri-C has provided high-quality, affordable education and programs to more than 1.2 million community members, fueling economic growth and meeting workforce needs throughout Northeast Ohio. The College is among the top institutions in the nation in conferring associate degrees. Visit tri-c.edu to see why Tri-C is where futures begin.
About Complete College America: Complete College America (CCA) is a bold national advocate for dramatically increasing college completion rates and closing institutional performance gaps by working with states, systems, institutions, and partners to scale highly effective structural reforms and promote policies that improve student success. To learn more about CCA, visit www.completecollege.org
