Pearl Cheng introduced our speaker : Speakers: Dr. Martha Kanter, a renowned expert in education who spoke to us about the impact of college on closing the wealth divide in our country via "The College Promise". Check out the video of her full presentation here. Dr. Kanter spoke about the rising costs of education, how our country has fallen from 1st to 10th in college graduates and the importance of post secondary education to achieving the American Dream and improving our Society. The College Promise program is spreading across our country and can deliver great results. Click on read more to see some of her key points were.
The College Promise – Delivering the American Dream and covers tuition and fees and provide support to help student succeed. These programs make a college degree more affordable and attainable for hardworking students.
Program started back in 1970, originally called ACE and focuses on College for all – everyone needs to go beyond high school whether it’s a traditional 4 year school or trade, or so forth to do well in our country. Although our country has achieved 90% graduation rate from high school – there are tremendous divides within that number
College costs continue to sky rocket, particularly over 10-15 years. Families are unable to afford loans associated with rising costs, students currently have $1.45 trillion dollars in student debt and there are 6.1 million unfilled jobs. We are 10th in the world for degree attainment (we used to be first). It is sad to note that 14% of community college students are homeless and Food insecurity is also a big issue. 1st generation students are challenged by parents not having a degree as well as not seeing value in obtaining one and as a result the achievement gap issues continue to increase
The focus of College Promise is to achieve the following outcomes
- 33% college completion increase
- 5x increase in English completion
- 91% completed first year of college
- 15% increase in high school graduation
