Initiative aims to help more Nevadans earn college degrees
Two new national designations for the Las Vegas metro area aim to transform the college student experience to ensure more Nevadans earn degrees and certificates.
The Lumina Foundation, a private foundation focused on student success, and Complete College America, a national nonprofit focused on providing more education opportunity for under-served students, have both recently shined a spotlight on the Las Vegas area. The Complete College America designation includes a $500,000 grant for College of Southern Nevada, Nevada State College and UNLV.
“We’ve got some big work to do,” James McCoy, CSN’s associate vice president of academic affairs, said Tuesday while announcing the initiative. “We stand ready to meet the challenge.”
With representatives from the city of Las Vegas, United Way of Southern Nevada, the Nevada System of Higher Education and the Governor’s Office of Workforce Innovation, McCoy laid out three goals the three institutions in the partnership are working on.
First, officials will work to increase access to higher education for students, whether they are pursuing a traditional degree, certificate or credential. Second, officials want to decrease the gap between the number of jobs requiring some type of postsecondary certificate and the percent of adults in Nevada with some type of postsecondary certificate. Finally, officials want to ensure that students who begin a program successfully complete it.
A new student will think the initiative is procedure, but it’s a far cry from how universities used to work with students, McCoy said. It’ll be more hands on and focused on helping students reach graduation and then move into a career pathway.
Part of that work can be done in the institutions themselves, and part of the new designation and grant funding will help expand existing programs to reach more students. One of those programs is the 15 to Finish campaign, which encourages students to take 15 credits a semester to make sure they’re on track to completing a degree on time.
But the community needs to get involved too. Students from urban areas often come with challenges that academic institutions aren’t always well-suited to fix, McCoy said. Transportation, food insecurity, and lack of affordable child care are all barriers for students.
That’s where the community partners can come in.
“We’re looking at the student more holistically,” said Nevada State College president Bart Patterson.
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Contact Meghin Delaney at 702-383-0281 or mdelaney@reviewjournal.com. Follow @MeghinDelaney on Twitter.