Tennessee’s work to increase its residents’ postsecondary attainment levels through initiatives such as the “Drive to 55” campaign, Tennessee Promise and Tennessee Reconnect has positioned the state as a national model, but leaders must not get complacent with the progress made thus far.
That was the sentiment of a new Complete Tennessee report released Tuesday titled “No Time to Wait: The State of Higher Education in Tennessee.” The report reveals that although more than 40 percent of Tennesseans now hold a postsecondary credential, state leaders, educators and community and industry partners can do more to address and close equity gaps in enrollment, retention and graduation outcomes for minority, low-income, rural, undocumented, incarcerated and other underserved groups.
“What was great [about the report] was the understanding that we are now comfortable with saying the word equity. And that is really new, I think, for Tennessee. We’ve always talked about access,” said Dr. Shanna L. Jackson, president of Nashville State Community College and a panelist at the report’s unveiling event. “This work is helping us to look at who’s actually benefiting from those programs and who’s actually completing those programs. It’s causing institutions to think differently.”
Complete Tennessee notes that data, research and researchers’ and practitioners’ expertise should be the basis for the state’s education equity agenda.
“No Time to Wait” offers several key data points for leaders to begin laying the groundwork for strategies to better identify and support subpopulations of students:
-Community college graduation rates have increased from 13 percent to 22 percent since 2013. However, fewer than one out of every four community college students graduate within three years;
-Only one in ten Black students will complete a community college degree, and only a third of Black students graduate within six years of enrollment at Tennessee’s locally-governed four-year institutions;
