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University System of Georgia Campus Plan Update 2015

Background

Georgia became one of the inaugural states in the Complete College America coalition in 2009, committing to a comprehensive approach to improving post-secondary certificate and degree attainment in the state.  A partnership was forged between the University System of Georgia (USG), the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG) and the state’s independent colleges.  These groups adopted an ambitious agenda to better prepare Georgia’s workforce for the demands of a 21st Century workplace. 

Improving post-secondary outcomes does not occur in a vacuum.  Achieving meaningful increases in the number of Georgians with certificates and degrees requires dedicated partnerships among K-12 education, the TCSG, the USG and the private sector.  A greater number of high school students will need to move through post-secondary education more efficiently and more adults must be encouraged and supported as they enter or return to college in order to meet Georgia’s ambitious goals.  CCG in Context

When Governor Nathan Deal launched the Complete College Georgia (CCG) initiative in August 2011, he called for specific measures at all institutions in the state’s University System and TCSG to increase access, retention and completion.  At the time, the percentage of Georgians with post-secondary credentials was 42 percent, considerably below the level of attainment that the state will require in the near future to remain competitive nationally.  This increase in degree attainment will allow more Georgians the opportunity to participate in furthering the state’s economy at an optimal level.

Governor Deal announced CCG at the depth of the Great Recession, when college enrollment nationally and in Georgia surged as displaced workers returned to school to improve their skills and expand their opportunities.  As the weight of the economic downturn has abated, post-secondary enrollment has declined as many of these students have been re-tooled and re-trained to enter Georgia’s workforce with meaningful credentials that have made them workforce ready.  This shift of students to the workforce has amplified the challenges of meeting the ambitious goals set out for the state in 2011 and made the efforts underway even more critical.

 

System Profile

The University System of Georgia includes 31 institutions, with fall 2014 enrollment of 312,936 students.  This figure is down from the record high enrollment of 318,027 the System experienced in fall 2011, but an increase of 3,467 students from Fall 2013.  From that high point, enrollment has declined as the as the pinch of the economic downturn diminishes.  Fall 2013 enrollment fell below Fall 2010 enrollment, and by Fall 2014, enrollment had dropped down to near Fall 2009 levels. 

The University System’s institutions range in headcount from 2,226 at South Georgia State College to 34,4518 at the University of Georgia. Nearly 90 percent of students served by USG institutions are from Georgia, with just under 7 percent of students from out of state, and 4 percent of enrollment consisting of international students. The University System serves a diverse population:

 »  52 percent white     »   28 percent Black

»   8 percent Asian       »   7 percent Hispanic

»   5 percent other categories/unreported

Over the past five years, the number of Hispanic students has increased by 46 percent and the percentage of Asian students has increased by 19 percent. Figure 1 illustrates the shifting composition of students enrolled in USG institutions.

Student preparation for college remains a significant challenge for college completion in Georgia.  While the Georgia Department of Education has been making tremendous efforts to improve the preparation of K-12 graduates, one in five students admitted to a University System institution required learning support in 2014.  While this is down considerably from 2010, when the figure was 30 percent, the number of students who enter requiring support poses significant challenges for our institutions.  The overwhelming majority of USG students enrolled in learning support—80 percent—are being served by one of the state’s 13 state colleges.  Even though the number of students has declined (in large part do to change in admissions requirements in 2012 prohibiting students with the lowest indicators of preparation from being admitted), the University System enrolled more then 10,000 freshmen in learning support in 2014.  For this reason, the emphasis on improving student outcomes in these programs, largely through changes in delivery mode, is a significant priority for the University System’s Complete College Georgia work.

Figure 2: USG Freshmen Enrolled in Learning Support by Sector, 2009-2014

The University System’s mission is to create a more educated Georgia. Census data from 2014 indicate that 40 percent of young adults (ages 25-34) and nearly 39 percent of all working age adults (age 25-64) possess at least an associate’s degree.  Twenty-two percent of working age Georgians—well over a million—indicate that they have some college, but no degree.  Georgia’s young adult population has educational attainment levels above the national average for associate degrees and higher, but across the working age population, the situation is reversed.  See Figure 3.

Figure 3: Educational Attainment among Young Adults (25-34) and Working Age Adults (25-64), Georgia and United States, 2013

Reaching the learners who are the core of the working age population is a major imperative for the University System. After increasing by 3.3 percent in 2011 over 2010, non-traditional enrollment has fallen since 2012 (by 5.9 percent in 2012, more than 10 percent in 2013, and 6.6 percent in 2014).  During this time, the percentage of enrollment that is non-traditional has fallen from a high of 13.2 percent in 2011 its current level of 10.6 percent.  Within the System, however, non-traditional enrollees are range from less than 5 percent of undergraduates at Research Institutions to almost 20 percent of enrollment at State Colleges.  Across all sectors the decline in enrollments can be observed as a decline in both absolute numbers and the share of enrollment that is non-traditional. This is not unexpected, of course, as the economy continues to improve and some non-traditional students who entered or returned to college during the recession have either completed their studies or returned to the workforce.

Figure 4: Non-Traditional Enrollment 2010-2014

Georgia’s educational attainment rates have improved over the past five years, due in part to degree conferrals at all levels rising by 18 percent since the 2010 Academic Year.  While the state has been able to exceed its goals for degree production since the announcement of the Complete College Georgia initiative in 2011-2012, demographic and economic trends underscore the significant work still needed to maintain the state’s momentum.  Figure 5 provides a view of degree production from 2010-2014.

Figure 5: USG Degree production 2010-2014

Georgia’s colleges and universities provide a wide range of programs to meet the state’s diverse needs.  The System office has continued to work with institutions to focus on research-based, high-impact strategies that have the potential to improve student outcomes.  Top-level work areas that have been the focus of the System’s Complete College Georgia activities are:

  • College Readiness
  • Improving Access and Completion for Underserved Students
  • Academic Advising
  • Shortening the Time to Degree
  • Restructuring Instructional Delivery, and
  • Transforming Remediation

These top level strategies have in some instances been further refined to provide more flexibility to serve the range of institutions within the University System. 

Goals and Strategies

The overarching goal for Complete College Georgia is to increase the number of undergraduate degrees awarded by USG institutions.  In order to achieve this goal, the University System has adopted seven strategically-oriented, supporting goals:

  1. Increase the number of degrees that are earned “on time” (associate degrees in 2 years, bachelor’s degrees in 4 years).
  2. Decrease excess credits earned on the path to getting a degree, allowing students to focus on only those courses they need, saving time and money.
  3. Provide targeted advising to keep students on track to graduate. With targeted advising, advisors will focus on strategies required to ensure that students complete degrees on time and without excess credit consumption, and they will very specifically focus on identifying and intervening with students who have veered off track for on-time graduation.
  4. Award degrees to students who may have already met requirements for associate degrees via courses taken at one or more institutions.
  5. Shorten time to degree completion through programs that allow students to earn college credit while still in high school and by awarding credit for prior learning that is verified by appropriate assessment.
  6. Increase the likelihood of degree completion by transforming the way that remediation is accomplished. Remediation refers to efforts to support students who are not prepared for college-level work in basis courses by offering additional instruction designed to prepare them for success in credit-bearing, college-level courses.
  7. Restructure instructional delivery to support educational excellence and student success. Instructional delivery can encompass any innovative means of new pedagogical methods, including e-texts, online education, flipped classrooms, and a host of others.
  8. Improve access for underserved and/or priority communities

Each goal addresses a specific challenge to completion that has been identified through research.  By approaching completion through a set of goals focused on removing specific barriers to success, the University System is advancing a strategy with sufficient flexibility to be effective at every campus in the System and adaptable enough to have impact across the institutional spectrum in Georgia. The success of this flexible approach is evident in the degree and scope of adoption of strategies across the System.  Table 1 shows the use of the seven goals listed above across 30 USG institutions.

Table 1: Institutional pursuit of High Impact CCG Strategies

GOAL

Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College

Albany State University

Armstrong Atlantic State University

Atlanta Metropolitan State College

Augusta University

Bainbridge State College

Clayton State University

College of Coastal Georgia

Columbus State University

Dalton State College

Darton State College

East Georgia State College

Fort Valley State University

Georgia College & State University

Georgia Gwinnett College

Georgia Highlands College

Georgia Institute of Technology

Georgia Perimeter College

Georgia Southern University

Georgia Southwestern State University

Georgia State University

Gordon State College

Kennesaw State University

Middle Georgia State College

Savannah State University

South Georgia State College

University of North Georgia

University of Georgia

University of West Georgia

Valdosta State University

System Total

1

 

 

       

 

 

 

21

2

   

 

 

   

 

   

 

 

   

17

3

 

 

 

27

4

                     

   

               

         

4

5

 

 

 

27

6

 

 

 

 

 

     

22

7

         

 

 

 

22

8

   

   

   

 

 

 

   

 

18

This represents a wide range of activities across the System, and underscores a deep commitment to completion work throughout the state.  The variety of goal-oriented strategies offers institutions to focus on those activities that match their profile and institutional mission, while not expending limited resources to pursue goals that are not priorities for the institution.   Identification of and use of these common goals have helped to focus the work at the System level on high impact strategies and provided guidance on how to implement various activities at the campus level.

Summary of Goals, High Impact Strategies and Activities

Goal 1

Increase the number of degrees that are earned “on time” (associate degrees in 2 years, bachelor’s degrees in 4 years)

High-impact strategy

Credit Intensity campaigns (15-to-Finish, 4 for U, Full Time is 15)

With public colleges and universities requiring (120) credit hours to attain a Bachelor's degree, completing 15 credit hours per semester is required to graduate on time and saves students and their parents additional costs for tuition, fees, housing, and meal plans. Graduating on time means students can begin working and accumulating wealth earlier. By finishing on time, students have more options: more career opportunities, competitive salaries, better benefits and security. Earning a degree pays, and earning it faster means making more money over the span of one's career.

Summary of Activities

15-to-Finish has emerged as a top priority endeavor for a number of schools across the University System.  Following upon our symposium in 2014, 11 institutions have reported that this strategy is a priority for their CCG work, and 21 report some activity in this area (an increase from 19 last year).  These activities include outreach to students at registration or matriculation, default block schedules of 15 credits or more, and tuition structures that incentivize 15 or more credits. 

Four institutions—Georgia College and State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia Regents University, and the University of Georgia—have adopted a tuition structure that promotes full-time attendance and on-time completion. By charging “full” tuition at a lower credit hour threshold, students are encouraged to maximize the number of credits they pursue.  In the case of Georgia Regents University, which has a very intentionally designed program to encourage students to take 15 or more credit hours per semester, there is evidence that this approach can be demonstrated to increase students attempting and completing 15 credits per semester.

Credit Intensity, University System 2012-2014

Baseline

In 2012, only 33 percent of undergraduates pursued 15 or more credits a semester.

Interim Measures of Progress

Campus adoption of credit intensity strategies; increase the percentage of students taking 15 or more credits a semester by 2 percentage points annually over five years.

Measures of Success

Increase in-time graduation rates by 10 percentage points by 2020.

Goal 2

Decrease excess credits earned on the path to getting a degree

High-impact strategy

Guided Pathways to Success

Guided Pathways to Success (GPS) is a Complete College America Grant-supported initiative to ensure that students receive guidance to complete degree programs efficiently, without taking excessive courses that will not count toward degrees. The goal is to provide clear degree roadmaps and intrusive advising to keep students on the path to a degree. Guided Pathways to Success moves away from offering students a "menu" of options that can lead to excessive credit accrual and no clear path to a degree.

Recognizing that students without declared majors are at particular risk for taking courses that will not count toward degree completion, institutions are encouraged to develop "meta-majors" for first-semester or first-year students that will direct students to take courses that will count toward any major within a broad grouping and strategies for undecided students to sample majors and careers.

Guiding students to degree completion requires supplementing human resources, such as advisors, with electronic tools that track student progress and guide them to take appropriate courses, in some cases by actively blocking inappropriate course selection. Programs already in use in USG institutions, such as Banner and Degree Works, supplemented by predictive analytics, can alert advisors when students veer off track, allowing advisors to intervene quickly and get students back on track to graduation.

Summary of Activities

Continuing work from 2014, eight campuses (Atlanta Metropolitan College, Kennesaw State University, Georgia Perimeter College, South Georgia State College, Georgia State University, University of North Georgia, Gordon State College, and Valdosta State University) have served as vanguard institutions, piloting structured scheduling and program maps to support their guided pathways work.  Institutions reported establishing milestone courses for pathways, with program maps added into advising platforms for student monitoring and interventions.  While GPS’s primary focus is on students who are full time, institutions are exploring options to establish program maps for part-time students as well to help keep this population on track to completion.

Interim Measures of Progress

Interim measures of success for this activity include the submission of implementation plans by the eight vanguard institutions; creation and implementation of program maps, block schedules and choice architecture at the vanguard institutions for high-enrollment programs; and establishment of standards for intrusive advising.  Milestones of success will be declines in overall credits accrued at graduation

Measures of Success

Students graduating with excess credits will decline over the next five years as campuses implement plans.

Goal 3

Provide targeted advising to keep students on track to graduate

High-impact strategy

USG institutions collect a wealth of data on their students.  The ability to use the power of this large pool of information to predict likely student outcomes under various scenarios has become increasingly feasible and important.  By pooling large sets of data and mining them for an array of factors it is possible to identify key courses that predict future success in a program, craft models on which student progression can be projected, and link interventions to clear points of concern.  Using data in this manner provides institutions with a powerful tool to help shape student outcomes and campus success.

Summary of Activities

Academic Advising was possibly the area of greatest interest to institutions in 2014-2015. For this year’s reporting cycle, 27 institutions indicated that they were focusing on advising, up from 24 the previous year.  Additionally, the Regents Advisory Committee on Academic Advising was re-established to provide a forum for campus advisors to provide a community and forum for sharing innovations, ideas and challenges among professional peers. 

The 2015 President’s Summit in April convened campus leaders around the issue of using analytics to align campus resources to maximize student success, with presentations from campuses across the system on how they apply student data to support advising, student progression and course scheduling to reduce bottlenecks.  This meeting also included representatives from Ad Astra, EAB, and D2L who discussed solutions for institutions that integrate into systems already in use on campus. 

Campuses have taken two distinct, but overlapping, paths with advising.  The first has been a focus on the use of generally centralized professional advisors to support students who are undeclared and guide them through the process of discerning their programs of study.  The second applies the considerable data institutions have gathered over the years on their students toward currently enrolled students to make informed recommendations for their academic paths.

Interim Measures of Progress

Campuses will identify milestones in program maps and predictor courses for future success; Predictive analytics is implemented on campus to identify students who are off-track, with appropriate interventions at appropriate times.

Measures of Success

Increase in overall percentage of credits successfully completed versus attempted each semester.

Goal 4

Award degrees to students who may have already met requirements for associate degrees via courses taken at one or more institutions.

High-impact strategy

Associate Degree You Deserve/Reverse Transfer/Credit When It’s Due

Summary of Activities

Several changes were undertaken in the 2014 academic year to support the awarding of associate degrees to students who begin their academic careers at associate degree granting institutions and complete the requirements for their degree after transferring to another USG institution to pursue a bachelor’s degree.  Among the obstacles to this process are identification of potentially eligible students, consent requirements on the transmission of student records, as well as an agreement from the student to be awarded the degree if they become eligible. 

For the short term, the System Office has contracted with education credentials management provider Parchment to help identify students who may be eligible and recommend their records be returned to the associate degree institution, upon approval of the student, for a degree audit.  Additionally, in order to facilitate the transfer of student records for this purpose moving forward, a change was made in the Georgia411 online application and on some paper applications to include opt-in consent requests for applicants to associate degree-granting institutions to have their records transferred back post-transfer for consideration, to be awarded an associate degree if eligible, and to have the record of this award communicated to their new institution.

Promotion and marketing around the initiative are planned for the Fall 2015, with the expectation that campuses will be awarding some degrees through this process that term.

Interim Measures of Progress

Establish an information release procedure for students upon matriculation allowing for data-sharing related to awarding degrees automatically; minimize fees for awarding of degrees; establish degree audit protocols for students with greater than 60 credit hours to determine degree eligibility; establish process to allow transfer students to opt-in for data sharing with associate-degree granting institution.

Measures of Success

The number of degrees awarded through reverse transfer of credit will increase.

Goal 5

Shorten time to degree completion through programs that allow students to earn college credit while still in high school and by awarding credit for prior learning that is verified by appropriate assessment.

High-impact strategy

Competency-based Education/Dual Enrollment/AP&IB/Early College

Summary of Activities

A number of dual enrollment options provide students in Georgia with the opportunity to enroll in college courses, provided they meet college entrance requirements and take courses from an approved list. If students meet course entrance and completion requirements, they receive high school and college credit.   Eligible dual enrollment students may defray the cost of their college courses through the Accel program, Move on When Ready or by receiving the HOPE Grant.  In addition to reducing the need for remediation, students successfully completing dual enrollment courses also reduce time to degree completion.

Interest has been growing nationally and in the state around the concept of competency-based education (CBE). This approach to learning measures student progress through an identified set of competencies, allowing them to move at their own pace accelerating through areas in which they have knowledge and skill and slowing down to master those that are new, challenging, or more complex for them.  Competencies would be stacked into degrees or certificates providing students greater flexibility in building their academic programs.  Such programs may also provide benefits to adult learners who may have considerable skillsets that are aligned with academic programs but for which they lack coursework.

Over the past year, the System Office has collaborated with Valdosta State University on a modest CBE pilot program for post-graduate education certification as a proof of model.  The lessons learned from this activity, as well as active discussions among key partners in the System Office and the USG New Learning Models Task Force have provided valuable context for how the System might be able to advance in this area and helped to identify obstacles to be overcome prior to implementation at scale. The USG is now pursuing further partnerships with state institutions to refine the model and is collaborating with nation-wide CBE efforts to ensure maximum efficiency and impact.

Twenty-seven institutions across the system report actively pursuing activities that reduce time to degree, with the most commonly adopted being the use of AP and International Baccalaureate assessments to award collegiate credit for courses pursed in high school, and the acceptance Program of College Level Examination (CLEP) and DSST exam scores to award credit for prior learning.  In the System Office initiated a review of the current IB and AP policy that included an examination success rates in the first year and relative levels of utilization for dual credit, AP, and IB.

Interim Measures of Progress

  • Number of students participating in Dual Enrollment, Move on When Read, and credit hours earned through these programs.
  • Number of students receiving credit for Prior Learning. 
  • Number of students who receive credit based on assessment of Prior Learning. 
  • Number of credits awarded for Prior Learning

Measures of Success

Degrees completed by students who earned credits through Dual Enrollment, Move on When Ready, Prior Learning Assessment.

Goal 6

Increase the likelihood of degree completion by transforming the way that remediation is accomplished.

High-impact strategy

Corequisite learning support policy and procedure

Adoption of corequisite Learning Support for the majority of students requiring remediation.

Summary of Activities

Following a careful review of existing policy and practice with respect to remediation and a review of evidence, research and input from other institution, the University System adopted new policies and procedures to transform remediation from placement through delivery and eventual measures of success.

In the 2014-2015 academic year, five USG Institutions were “at scale” with corequisite remediation (Albany State University, Bainbridge State College, College of Coastal Georgia, Georgia Highlands College, and Gordon State College). The reconstructed model includes:

  • Revision of USG policies and procedures for Learning Support
  • Redefining the focus of remediation from trying to compensate for what students did not learn in K-12 to focus on providing students with appropriate support for completion of credit-bearing collegiate courses that serve as the gateway to the college curriculum for all students.  Remediation efforts in the USG have been referred to as Learning Support for many years.  Efforts to transform remediation have focused on putting the “Support” back into Learning Support efforts
  • Requiring most Learning Support to be delivered in a corequisite model beginning by fFall of 2015. Using the corequisite strategy, students take a 1 or 2 credit remedial course WHILE taking the related credit-bearing collegiate course (English 1101 or a collegiate math course), decreasing the time, credit, and cost required to complete remediation and start earning collegiate credit
  • Combining reading and writing into a single English remediation course
  • Eliminating COMPASS test as an exit exam
  • Using completion of the gateway collegiate course as the criterion for exiting Learning Support
  • Reconfiguring the criteria used to evaluate the need for Learning Support (modeled on historical performance data) so that placement in or exemption from Learning Support is no longer dependent on the score a single high-stakes test
  • Adoption of the new indices for placing students in Learning Support

Initial results from the five campuses who were at scale indicate that students placed in corequisite remediation classes pass the associated collegiate level course at the same rate as those who do not have a learning support requirement—about 67 percent—as compared with a 21 percent passage rate from the previous year.  These initial results are highly encouraging.

 While campuses had until Fall 2015 to fully implement changes to remediation, 22 institutions reported report that they have already begun work on this transformation, including implementing new placement and screening procedures, developing corequisite learning support courses, conducting faculty and instructor training, and piloting new models of delivery.

Interim Measures of Progress

  • Number of USG institutions using the corequisite model as their predominant form of remediation
  • Percentage of remedial students in the USG with initial placement into corequisite Learning Support

Measures of Success

  • Percentage of students who exit Learning Support within 1, 2, or 3 semesters.
  • Percentage of students in corequisite Learning Support who successfully complete the gateway collegiate course compared to students in gateway courses who exempted Learning Support requirements
  • Ultimately, the percentage of students who start in Learning Support who complete degrees on time and within 150% time

Goal 7

Restructure instructional delivery to support educational excellence and student success

High-impact strategy

Online eCore and Pre-Calculus emporium; New Learning Models Massive Open Online Collaboration (Inventing the Beyond), increase access and success in key courses in the core curriculum while leveraging technology to contain or decrease costs to students; innovation grants in open educational resources and flipped classrooms

Summary of Activities

In September of 2014, the Board of Regents approved a resolution making eCore available to all students at comprehensive universities, state universities, and state colleges within the University System of Georgia.  Students at 26 institutions were able to enroll directly in courses offered by eCore, increasing participation from a headcount of roughly 9,200 students in 2013 to greater than 15,000 in 2014.  This 76 percent increase in enrollment underscores the degree to which eCore is providing students with more opportunities to meet their core course needs.  Importantly, students who take eCore courses are more likely to graduate on time, in part due to the ability of students to avoid course bottlenecks in students’ general education course taking. Additionally, 23 of 27 eCore courses rely upon open educational resources, saving students thousands of dollars and helping to drive their adoption across the state.

Additionally, the University System completed the work of the New Learning Models Inventing the Beyond project, which concluded in April 2015 with a capstone event gathering stakeholders from within the University System and national experts.  From this project and this event emerged four key recommendations for new learning models

  • Increase Alignments Between College & Career
  • Increase Student Learning & Lifestyle Options
  • Increase Access, Affordability and Flexibility in the Academic Marketplace
  • Empower the Changing Cultures of the Campus

Interim Measures of Progress

  • Number of courses offered via eCore
  • Participation and success rates in experimental courses, such as the Pre-Calculus emporium
  • Participation in and products from Inventing the Beyond (New Learning Models Massive Open Online Collaboration – a think tank for the USG and beyond)

Measures of Success

Number of credits successfully completed for courses offered completely online; number and percentage of degrees conferred in which at least one course was offered fully online; number of credits successfully completed for courses offered via alternative delivery models (e.g., hybrid instruction, flipped classrooms, and emporium-model instruction).

Observations

Much progress has been made since Georgia joined with other states in 2009 to focus on college completion.  Since that time, a recession has transformed the economy and the demands of the workplace.  In partnership with the Technical College System of Georgia, the institutions of the University System have risen to the challenge and taken major steps to help prepare Georgia with the workforce of the future.  In 2014-2015, System Office staff used several convening opportunities to assess campus progress, commitment, needs and successes. 

The results of this process are encouraging.  Campuses report a shift in culture toward completion that permeates other work on campus.  The strong focus of the state to college readiness and completion is reinforced at the campus level by concrete commitments of resources and personnel to completion work.  Institutions are investigating a host of opportunities—including centralized, professional advising, new instructional methods, and the enhanced use of data—to support and advance their students. 

Complete College Georgia remains a work in progress, investigating and adapting promising, research-based innovations from across the country to support Georgia students.  The success Georgia has experienced in the initial, limited phase of implementation of corequisite remediation suggests a significant expansion of opportunity for a group of students who faced overwhelming challenges gaining traction for their post-secondary aspirations.  As the program moves to scale, the opportunity for the community of practitioners to support and enhance work across the System demonstrates the power of a System approach to shared challenges.

This may also prove true with the application of data and predictive analytics across the System.  While using data to reach out to students at key momentum points to improve their outcomes has been proven as a model for success, there remain resource and capacity challenges to its adoption at a number of institutions.  Finding the opportunities to leverage the tremendous capacity resident in our institutions remains the greatest strength for the University System.   

Finally, while much progress has been made, much remains to be done.  The state’s ambitious goal for post-secondary degrees and credentials will require not just more success with the students who are already enrolling, but efforts to encourage those who may have some college experience to return and complete their degrees. Facilitating success for this community will require new approaches, new thinking, and new systems to ensure that they are able to thrive in higher education.  As Complete College Georgia moves into its fifth year, the focus will be on extending the momentum beyond the core areas of success and reaching into new arenas.