When students with General Educational Development (GED) diplomas enter the college system, many of them drop out after their first semester, according to national data. Santa Fe College’s Pathways to Persistence program aims to change that, and the White House and higher education officials are taking notice.
Of Santa Fe students with a GED degree, 60 percent drop out after their first semester, said Angela Long, program director. For the 32 Pathways scholars, the dropout rate is 15 percent, compared to a dropout rate of 22 percent collegewide.
Students must apply and be selected as Pathways scholars, which enrolls them in a three-credit-hour College Success course, matches them with a mentor and a peer connection, a student from the honors program on campus.
Keeping GED students in college relies on five factors, Long said. Those factors include creating a fondness for the college, aiding them through financial troubles, making them leaders, teaching them that failure is part of life and extending a hand of friendship.
Long and some students will be presenting the program to Education Secretary Arne Duncan and White House staff in May, hopefully to help duplicate the program across the nation.
Read the full article from the Gainesville Sun here.
