Governors Association to Focus on Education
SOURCE:
West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin III, new chair of the National Governors Association, recently announced the creation of Complete to Compete, his new initiative aimed at increasing college completion rates across the country.
“The nation has fallen from first to 12th in the world in the number of students who complete degrees. Now, we're faced with a generation of students that is projected to have lower educational attainment than their parents,” said Manchin at the closing of the annual meeting of governors, according to TIME magazine.
“This slide continues at a time when the economy demands more educated workers and Americans increasingly look to higher education as the path to economic success,” he added. “My initiative will bring together governors, higher education executive officers, campus leaders and corporate CEOs to make marked improvements in college completion and productivity and get our country back on track to produce a successful workforce for the future.”
In the Compete to Complete brochure, the governor says completion rates are “dismal,” with only 27 percent of community college students graduating and 55 percent of students at four-year institutions earning a degree. There are not enough high school graduates to achieve the 8.2 million new college graduates needed for the U.S. to reclaim the rank of first in the world for college attainment. So, Manchin says, states will need to focus on recruiting older Americans through aggressive policies to re-engage adults, while at the same time providing incentives for colleges to increase degree completion.
Under the initiative, the National Governors Association has several tasks:
- Create common measures governors can use to monitor state progress and compare performance with other states and institutions.
- Develop a series of best practices and a list of policy actions governors can take to achieve increased college completion.
- Host a national summit bringing together governors and key stakeholders such as CEOs, state higher education executive officers, and institutional presidents to discuss comprehensive higher education reform strategies.
- Provide grants to states to design policies and programs that increase college completion and improve higher education productivity and serve as models for other states around the country.
- Hold a learning institute for governors’ senior advisors in education, workforce, and economic development focusing on successful state strategies to graduate more students and meet workforce demands.
- It's encouraging and an indicator of the importance education plays in today's economy that the head of the NGA is creating this program. I hope, though, that it is not just for show and effective changes really do come from what could be a great initiative.
Kristi Eaton is a staff writer for Campus Progress. She graduated from Arizone State University in 2008.
Handful of Colorado Lawmakers Stonewall Civil Unions Bill
Take Congress on a #DontDoubleMyRate Date
Who Should Speak at #CPNC12?