AC First in Texas to Receive College Readiness Success Grant

AC received word in August from the Coordinating Board that it has been chosen to launch an unprecedented performance-based grant initiative: The Comprehensive College Readiness and Success Grant.

It is an initiative that has roots in the state’s 60x30TX plan, which envisions 60 percent of Texans ages 25 to 34 in possession of some type of postsecondary credential by 2030.

“We’re being funded to support the acceleration of students through both developmental education and integrated career pathways,” Dr. Tamara Clunis, AC’s dean of academic success, said. “It means we’ll be helping our weakest students build their basic skills while they’re completing workforce training programs in the areas of health sciences, technical education and business management.

“Our goal with this grant is to try and help as many students as possible earn Level I certificates,” she said. “They can not only use these certificates to launch careers, but they can also build on them, ‘stack’ them, until they achieve an associate’s degree.”

Having secured the competitive grant, AC now not only has the opportunity to set the bar for like efforts throughout Texas, but also can realize up to $904,000 over the span of the two-year project. The sum ultimately depends on the number of students who successfully achieve Level I certification within the allotted timeframe.

The performance-based configuration of the grant presents a challenge that is particularly appealing to AC President Russell Lower-Hart. He points to a history of innovations the College already is using to help underprepared students achieve success — from embedding tutors per need in credit courses, to aligning developmental and credit courses and letting students, for the first time, take them simultaneously.

In the past year alone, AC’s success rate in developmental classes has shot up from 55 percent to 62 percent. And just by fine-turning its method of pre-assessment and offering refresher courses where applicable, AC in the last year reduced the number of students who even need developmental coursework by 9 percent.

“Being selected for this groundbreaking grant is a gratifying result of our commitment to student success,” Lowery-Hart said. “We’ll be able to increase our own funding based on performance and innovation; it will be up to us just how we get there. The state selected us for this award based on our willingness to innovate, our national reputation, and because we have steadily moved the needle in the right direction on data that really matters.”