The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awards $743,000 community colleges

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded Danville Community College and Patrick Henry Community College each a $743,000 grant over three years in an effort to boost college graduation rates, the foundation announced today.

According to the Gates Foundation, 47 percent of students who enroll in community colleges must first take non-credit remedial classes before they can begin degree coursework. But for many students, there is an educational gap between high school and college, making remedial courses a struggle.

The grants are part of $1.8 million given to the state of Virginia — and $16.5 million nationwide — to expand remedial education programs aimed at improving the graduation rates of low-income students and students of color. Danville and Patrick Henry community colleges are two of 15 community colleges nationwide chosen for these grants.

“We are trying to accelerate the progress of students through remedial education classes so they can go on to college-level classes and graduate with a degree,” said Janet Laughlin, DCC dean of student success and academic advancement.

“A lot of students never make it through the developmental classes — they are coming to us underprepared for college level work. Or by the time they have (made it through), they’ve exhausted their financial resources.”

The grant money will go toward expanding existing programs that have already showed promise, which is why the Gates Foundation chose DCC and Patrick Henry, said Marie Groark, Gates senior program officer.

At DCC, the $743,000 will help create an academic success center comprising math and language arts software and tutoring. The labs will give students the opportunity for accelerated progress rather than four-week modules, allowing students to move at their own pace.

In addition to the success center, DCC will also establish a developmental education advisory committee and a comprehensive professional development program, and will offer a summer bridge math program. Other objectives include streamlining math content in technical program areas where appropriate and connecting students to community resources to help overcome non-academic barriers.

DCC will also continue to partner with public schools and universities to align math and English exit and entry standards.

“What this grant represents is what we would think of as the most promising practices that exist in community colleges currently,” Groark said, “especially those that tend to serve the least prepared students.”

Danville and Patrick Henry colleges are already a part of a national initiative called Achieving the Dream, aimed at helping community college students fast track their coursework. The Gates Foundation selected its 15 grant recipients from a group of 37 colleges in seven states already participating in Achieving the Dream, Groark said.

The other part of the grant — $300,000 for the state over three years — will commission research to identify obstacles to college completion as well as what is already working in community colleges statewide. Virginia was one of only five states chosen for this grant.

The grant money comes from the Gates Foundation as well as the Chapel Hill-based MDC, Inc., a non-profit aimed at removing barriers to progress in the South, and the Lumina Foundation for Education, a private foundation committed to enrolling and graduating more at-risk students from college.

Patrick Henry Community College’s grant money will go toward expanding accelerated courses, simultaneous enrollment in remedial and college-level courses and a math lab requirement. The college will also refine a diagnostic tool that identifies risk factors.

“A lot of times it’s just — life gets in the way,” Laughlin said. “And (students) have to drop out, not because of their academic status, but because life has happened. Many of our students have very complex lives — that’s just one of the characteristics of a community college student.

“And that’s what makes us rich in terms of our culture. We want to help them all be successful. The initiative is just trying to double the number of students that we get through college and get a good job and the ability to support a family. All of that is so supportive to our own area.”