NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Gov. Bill Haslam's initiatives to boost postsecondary education degrees in Tennessee are showing success.
Enrollment figures show strong interest in three programs Haslam launched as part of his initiative to increase the percentage of Tennesseans with a degree or certificate beyond high school.
Two programs are geared toward adults. One provides free tuition at the state's technology colleges and has received 8,000 applicants. The other is an online university that offers a competency-based degree program and now has an enrollment of 2,000; a nearly 200 percent increase in two years.
About 58,000 high school graduates have applied for the main program, called Tennessee Promise. That initiative offers free tuition at any of the state's two year and trade schools to high school grads.
Warren Nichols leads Tennessee’s 40 community colleges and technical schools. He says the governor recently released still more education funds to ensure the flood of new students, many of who are the first in their families to attend college, are adequately prepared.
“For those students who aren’t quite there academically, let’s say with mathematics or with reading and writing, they can attend a bridge program through each of our 13 community colleges over the summer to best prepare them for that transition.”
The bridge classes are free and will last one to three weeks. Nichols says he’s hiring additional staff and instructors to deal with the anticipated flood of news students his institutions will see in the fall.