Gov. Deal: Get more Georgians into college. And get them to graduate.
Here is a release from Gov. Deal’s office on the state’s new push to both enroll and graduate more students from college:
Gov. Nathan Deal, along with all 35 presidents of the University System of Georgia, 25 presidents of the Technical College System of Georgia and representatives from Georgia’s independent colleges and the business community, today launched the campus level completion portion of Complete College Georgia, which was first initiated in August 2011. The initiative calls for and identifies strategies for the state’s public and private colleges to add an additional 250,000 college graduates – whether a one-year certificate, an associate’s degree or a bachelor’s degree – by 2020, a number that is over and above current graduation levels.
“Any significant increase in the number of Georgians who complete college will require a historic new era of coordination between the state’s public and private colleges and the business community,” said Deal. “To have a successful future in Georgia, and remain competitive nationwide and globally, we have to have an educated workforce, and that means we need to do a better job getting people into college, make sure they receive a high-quality education and then graduate them.”
The presidents also heard from Chris Clark, president and CEO of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce. Clark noted that the work of Complete College Georgia is in line with the economic needs of the state, as reflected in a recently released report from the governor’s office as part of Deal’s Georgia’s Competitiveness Initiative.
The Georgia Competitiveness Initiative, which gathered input from more than 4,000 Georgians for the report, highlighted education and workforce development, specifically improvement in the academic quality of and access to k-12 through postsecondary education, as a top priority in nearly every region of the state.
Over the past six months USG and TCSG officials have developed a statewide plan to meet the Complete College Georgia targets. Today’s event comes at the beginning of campus-level planning and work to align with the statewide plan.
“Make no mistake, this marks a big shift in higher education in Georgia,” said USG Chancellor Hank Huckaby. “To do this right, we have to work toward the long term and envision how higher education can better serve the people of Georgia, and we have to do this collaboratively with all players in the state.”
TCSG Commissioner Ron Jackson added, “Our institutions have been making strides toward improving access and graduation rates, but we have to do more. We needed to come together and have open discussions about what we can do as a state.”
A recent Georgetown University study indicates a great deal of work must be done nationally and in Georgia in order to ensure the nation’s future workforce needs. In Georgia, currently 42 percent of the population holds some form of a college degree, while the Georgetown study found that by 2020, that percentage should be 60 percent for the state to remain economically competitive.
To reach the “big goal” James Applegate, vice president of program development for the Lumina Foundation, said to the group, “You need to serve those for whom so often the current system of higher education doesn’t work.”
This includes the 35.8 million working-age adults nationwide that attended college for some time but did not earn a degree, Applegate said. Military personnel and minority groups also should be a focus in terms of ensuring more individuals are able to complete some level of college.
The Lumina Foundation, based in Indianapolis, is focused on expanding access and success in education beyond high school, with a single, overarching goal to increase the percentage of Americans with high-quality degrees and credentials to 60 percent by the year 2025.
Georgia is a member of the Complete College America Alliance, a group of 30 states committed to significantly increasing the number of students successfully earning a college degree or credential. The state received a $1 million grant from Complete College America in August to focus on transforming remedial education, a core component of the larger Complete College Georgia effort.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
70 comments Add your comment
Ron F.
February 28th, 2012
8:23 pm
It’s late, and today has been a long day, but I almost find this laughable. Deal cuts HOPE down, not even addressing the rampant mismanagement of funds and now wants to say we need to get more kids through college…I think I’ve added a nickname to my list for him. Now I’ll just call him Double Deal…
I agree with those who have posted about the benefits of technical colleges. Many would be well prepared for a career and for future learning if they attended technical colleges. I’ve had students who found their true calling in life there, and I’d love to see more attention given to these schools. Four year college degrees aren’t for everyone.
To JF McNamara
February 28th, 2012
8:55 pm
What good is a grade 13 certificate?
What will that do for the student?
What will that mean for a prospective employer?
Sounds like the only person who might benefit from it is a teacher who wants to moonlight to earn extra money.
Good Mother
What Concerns me about Deal's Message / GM
February 28th, 2012
9:02 pm
What concerns me about Deal’s message (actually a lot concerns me) but this particular sentence concerns me a lot:
“…we have to have an educated workforce, and that means we need to do a better job getting people into college, make sure they receive a high-quality education and then graduate them.”
Notice he said “graduate them” and not “so they can graduate.”
What concderns me is that he wants to socially promote college students just as we do in k-12 GA schools. I graduated high school with students who were functional illiterates. That high school diploma was worthless.
Now, I don’t want GA universities to become more diploma mills more than they already are. I often get resumes from people, even with Masters degrees, with horrible grammar. One applicant with a Masters degree wrote in his summary “I HAS experience doing X and I HAS experience doing Y.” HAS? HAS? It is “I Have…” and my child’s teacher demonstrates the same lack of fundamental grammar.
We don’t need more poorly educated college “graduates.”
If Deal is serious he would provide pre-K for all students in GA. An early education is key. We also need to ensure we hvae quality teachers in k-12 and classrooms of a manageable size. We also need to ensure that college tuition is affordable for everyone. Until those three things are met, we won’t have real college educated Georgians in significant numbers.
Good Mother
To HS Teacher
February 28th, 2012
9:05 pm
You wrote ““The World Needs Ditch-Diggers Too!” – Judge Smails
Your comment is patronizing.
Good Mother
3schoolkids
February 28th, 2012
9:07 pm
Not to knock the Technical Colleges as an alternative to those students who don’t seem to be academically motivated by their high school years, but here is a link to an MIT study on brain development in young adulthood (age 18-25).
http://hrweb.mit.edu/worklife/youngadult/index.html
Technical Colleges are a good option for those who have a desire to seek that career path, but I don’t think we should be rushing kids to choose based on economic policy.
redweather
February 29th, 2012
6:30 am
Deal says “make sure they receive a high-quality education and then graduate them.”
From in front of the classroom, this is much easier said than done. Unmotivated and/or disinterested students account for as much as 30% of the students I see in the college classroom. Anything we do, as others have pointed out, is made more difficult by the skills Georgia’s high school graduates bring to college. I know it’s popular to bash the public school system, but there are too many kids entering college who are reading and writing at about an eighth grade level, and who struggle to get through a college algebra course. I can see the day when the pressure to graduate students from college, no matter what they haven’t learned, will make college and high school diplomas almost indistinguishable.
ScienceProf
February 29th, 2012
7:04 am
Wanting more college graduates and getting them to graduate are two totally different things. No one I know is going to “socially promote” anyone out of our college courses. My courses are rigorous and will remain that way. One part of my job is to get students to realize what they want to be when they grow up…and sometimes that realization includes coming to the realization that they aren’t college graduate material.
Sarah
February 29th, 2012
7:17 am
Just what we need. government telling us what to major in. When you don’t have a job, you can say it’s not your fault and demand that a job be “saved or created” for you.
Michael
February 29th, 2012
7:26 am
COLLEGE IS NOT FOR EVERYBODY – we can get to 100% grad rate, but where is the quality? Where are we going to put the students? Many colleges in the USG are busting at the seams – lets all take a collective deep breath and make sure the quality of the education and graduates are better, first.
commoncents
February 29th, 2012
8:18 am
redweather: “Unmotivated and/or disinterested students account for as much as 30% of the students I see in the college classroom.”
I’d be unmotivated too if I saw neighbors/friends/family recieve governement benefits my whole life. If you told me while growing up that I could have the same quality of life not working as someone who did work, I probably wouldn’t try too hard.
Csoby
February 29th, 2012
8:28 am
Appears to be a push by the university system to make another jump in tuition and cost. Why am I starting to see industry make a pitch for trade degrees and education in lieu of a piece of paper from a University. Perhaps we need to re think this in lieu of listening to the elite that take their wealth from the unervisity system that has no accountability of Cost to attend vs expenses to operate and profitability. We have here a ponzi scheme!
LeeH1
February 29th, 2012
9:10 am
Send them to college with a Rick Santorum scholarship. Only the sons of white people can get them- minorities and women don’t need no edukation!
And Tea Party members should only send their children to private schools. They oppose taxes to support the education of women and other worthless minorities!
Where Are The Parents??
February 29th, 2012
9:42 am
“Unmotivated and/or disinterested students account for as much as 30% of the students I see in the college classroom.”
This may be a huge part of the problem. I’ve worked over 20 years in IT for a major corp. An ever growing number of employees and contractors come here from India, China, Pakistan and other places overseas. These guys and gals are highly skilled and highly motivated. I’m told that in India when they take the eqivilence of a “Technical SAT Test”, the parents are right there with their kids – waiting hours and hours while they take the test. Education is a family affair. And most of these people are dirt poor beyond anything we can comprehend – so it’s not about privilege, it’s about the promise of pursuing something better..
Rural Georgia Educator
February 29th, 2012
9:45 am
The fundamental need is to increase the level of education attained by Georgians. Completing high school, a technical program or college degree doesn’t necessarily mean one has attained a proper education. High school graduation rates have increased across Georgia, but rest assured that the level of preparation and education has not! My father had a high school education and he was far more educated that most college graduates I know. He was self-educated. He read and studied every day of his 85 year life. Oh, by the way, he worked at least two jobs all his life and contributed greatly to his community.
We must compete and we can’t do so with an uneducated population. Let’s get back to the basics. All students who leave Georgia’s K-12 education system should have mastered reading, writing and arithmetic! Period!!! Whether one has a GED, high school diploma, technical education, college degree or advanced degree, reading, writing and arithmetic are essential.
I’d also add that there is great public benefit when young people have an appreciation for work, self motivation, self reliance and citizenship. Yes, we have a serious education problem in the State, but we have a greater social challenge too. Education and work are not valued. Educators and those who work are not appreciated. Hard work is not rewarded when the state provides according to need rather than based on work!
Wake up Georgia! Stop the entitlements, the class and race warfare and get serious about changing the culture! Work and study never hurt anyone. So, put down the cell phones and gaming devices. Close your FACEBOOK accounts and turn off the television and get start studying and working!
Politicians can’t and won’t fix this – you must do it!
EJ Moosa
February 29th, 2012
10:06 am
Just another popular myth to push more dollars into universities.
Much like the idea that if everyone votes we would have a better election.
We could all have college educations and all vote and all the smothering regulation of federal state and local governments would still be in place.
redweather
February 29th, 2012
12:54 pm
@commoncents, indifference is an equal opportunity problem. My students run the gamut from privileged to dirt poor. No race or ethnic group that I am aware or, or that has been represented in my classroom, is immune. Some kids will squander every advantage that comes their; others rise above their disadvantages.
Ole Guy
February 29th, 2012
2:32 pm
Is this the same Governor who hands out promotions…like Captain to General…with no other explanation than “Governor’s Discretion”? What a fine leadership philosophy…IF THEY DON’T/CAN’T EARN IT, THEN HAND IT TO EM”.
I believe the Reagan Administration wanted everyone to own a home, whether the could afford it or not; whether they, quite frankly, DESERVED IT OR NOT. We’ve seen what happens when the UNQUALIFIED and UNDESERVING have things handed to them.
After that military maneuver, Governor, I’m probably not alone when I proclaim my absolute lose of confidence in your leadership.
Ivan Cohen
March 1st, 2012
1:47 pm
In the very near future, just to pick the garbage up will require a Doctorate. American society will be so selective. My definition of a level playing field is when the person who is in the Governor’s mansion has a G.E.D. or a vocational education. So far, it has not happened yet. College is not for everyone, yet this nation still has a love affair with intellectuals and intellectuals went to college. At least that is what they tell us. Industry went overseas for cheap labor and they didn’t have those “pesky” unions to deal with. Human labor won’t be required to dig ditches, a machine will be doing that. Only human involvement will be to program the machine. Programming will require education but not that much. Some career fields now which use machines. Machines don’t require coffee breaks and they don’t get sick. When the out of state companies relocate to Georgia, they bring their “educated staff” with them. The Georgia resident gets an entry-level position and all too often is locked into that position for the duration of their stay with the company. Are they kept there due to education or because of a lack of education? In a word yes, however more often it’s a “seniority” thing rather than an “education” thing.
Ole Guy
March 3rd, 2012
3:25 pm
Interesting phrase…GET THEM TO GRADUATE. That’s sort of like…GET THEM TO POOP. Aren’t both of these functions, more or less, “internally generated”. Oh, you can feed the kid the appropriate diet which will, likely, “promote” the later. Regarding the former, the appropriate diet would be THE OPPORTUNITY FOR AN EDUCATION…A FREE ONE AT THAT.
All the programs and initiatives in the world won’t mean a damn thing without a little EMF…that’s ElectroMotive Force, better known as VOLTAGE…more precisely, A KICK IN THE PANTS!
When are we going to stop pissing around with these kids? Everytime some guru comes up with a “program” of one flavor or another, the message, in kids’ minds, is reinforced: “OH, YOU NEEDN’T DO A THING. WE’VE GOT A PROGRAM. I keep harping the same gd thing…STANDARDS. “Ok, meatheads, these are the standards. You either hack it, or pack it”. If, by the age of 16, the kid demonstrates absolutely no interest in school…BOOT IM’ OUT!
There now…that wasn’t so hard to understand, Governor, wasn’t it?
N. GA Teacher
March 3rd, 2012
9:07 pm
It is NOT the state’s or Gov. Deal’s responsibility to “get kids to go to college” or “graduate” students. It is the responsibility of the STUDENT to EARN entrance into a college and then use talent and work ethic to EARN graduation.