Dive Summary:
- In what Lone Star College System Chancellor Richard Carpenter called "a shock," the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation terminated its $35 million Completion by Design grant in Texas.
- Completion by Design is a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation initiative in which teams of colleges in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas beat out 27 teams in nine states to participate in a five-year project, which began in 2010, aimed at encouraging groups of two-year colleges in four states to work together to keep more low-income and young students on the pathway to graduation.
- Carpenter says that despite the termination of the grant, the foundation-funded planning process that was recently completed had given the colleges a big boost and that the state's community colleges will continue on with their own completion initiative--the newly named "Texas Completes."
From the article:
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has terminated a high-profile college completion grant in Texas, a decision one community college leader in the state called abrupt and surprising. Dubbed Completion by Design, the $35-million grant encourages groups of two-year colleges in four states to work together to keep more low-income and young students from slipping through the cracks and to better help guide them on a pathway to graduation. Teams of colleges in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas beat out 27 teams in nine states to participate in the five-year project, which began in 2010. ...