CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Academic, personal and financial supports will be provided to some students at West Virginia University Parkersburg and Blue Ridge Community and Technical College as part of a pilot program that begins this August.
Nearly $4.2 million from Arnold Ventures has been designated to help qualifying students complete their degrees at both schools in high-demand fields leading to jobs in the Mountain State like health care, information technology, welding and advanced manufacturing.
Dr. Sarah Armstrong Tucker, chancellor for the West Virginia Community and Technical College System, said the goal was to build on the number of students entering and graduating from those programs and then moving on to gainful employment.
“It’s one thing to get students enrolled into your institution, it’s another thing to make sure that they graduate and that they’re graduating on time,” she said.
The pilot program is modeled after the Accelerated Study in Associate Programs or ASAP at City University of New York, Tucker said.
At CUNY, graduation rates almost doubled during the three years of ASAP.
“This program, this replication of the CUNY ASAP program, is really the only research-based evidence of how you can get a comprehensive program together to get students to graduate on time,” Tucker told MetroNews.
Key components included student recruitment, campus community early engagement, financial resources for costs beyond tuition and scheduling support along with advising, tutoring and career prep work.
“Sort of everything that you would need to have your hand held from beginning to end of a program,” Tucker said.
“It’s not for every single program that the institution offers. It’s for the select programs that are high-demand within those institutions.”
Tucker is a leading advocate for the West Virginia Climb initiative which has a goal of seeing 60 percent of West Virginians with postsecondary certificates or degrees by 2030.
Arnold Ventures is a philanthropic organization that “funds efforts to understand problems and identify policy solutions.”
Only West Virginia was selected for this pilot program.
“It is a good chunk of money,” Tucker said.
“It’ll be split between the institutions. It’s a six-year grant, but it helps them to build the infrastructure that they need in order to ensure these students are successful.”
The initial cohort of students, possibly as many as 200, starts classes this fall ahead of full implementation in Fall 2021.
As of now, the program is scheduled to continue through Spring 2025.
Results will be monitored.
Depending on how it goes at WVU Parkersburg and Blue Ridge CTC in Martinsburg, the pilot project could be rolled out to all two-year institutions statewide.