LONG BEACH, Calif. —Achieving the Dream is teaming up with the Biden Foundation to spearhead a bold, new initiative called “Community College Women Succeed,” aimed at helping adult women learners — including single parents — succeed and complete community college.
The new initiative was announced on Wednesday by Dr. Jill Biden, the former Second Lady who is also an English professor at Northern Virginia Community College.
“Teaching isn’t just what I do,” Biden told the more than 2,400 Achieving the Dream (ATD) conference attendees who have gathered here for several days to strategize on how best to help students — particularly low-income and students of color —achieve academic success. “It is who I am.”
Biden has long been an advocate and staunch supporter for community colleges. In 2010, she hosted the first ever White House Summit on Community Colleges.
In her talk on Wednesday, Biden pointed to data by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) that note that a growing number of single mothers — 11 percent of all undergraduates — are enrolled in postsecondary institutions but most will not graduate because of the challenges they face as financially independent students who are juggling work, school and parenting.
According to IWPR, only eight percent of single mothers enrolled in college earn an associate or bachelor’s degree within six years.
Biden said that the new initiative with ATD will promote “promising practices and innovative programs to support women’s retention in community colleges based on research and retention trends.”
