Haslam: Tennessee Promise helping minorities reach college

WASHINGTON --- Gov. Bill Haslam used an appearance in Washington on Wednesday to promote Tennessee Promise as a tool for improving college graduation rates for minority students.

Haslam said there are early signs the program that lets Tennessee high-school graduates attend two-year college tuition-free already is responsible for more black students enrolling in post-secondary education.

“We have an achievement gap in Tennessee that we’ve focused a lot in K-12, and we’re making some headway -- not as fast as I’d like -- but we’re making headway, and we owe it to ourselves and everybody else to do the same thing in higher education,” Haslam said after speaking at a National Higher Education Summit.

Tennessee Promise gets 'refined' in year 2

Haslam appeared with elected officials from around the country to discuss boosting the number of minority students attending and graduating from post-secondary schools.

The first Tennessee Promise students are in their first year of community college or technical school training. Haslam said the state will track them by race and will learn which students finish their first year and enroll for a second.

“Historically, unfortunately in Tennessee, minorities have been under-represented as far as degree-holders, so we’ve made a very targeted effort in recruitment to see if we could address that,” Haslam said.

Tennessee Promise pays for whatever tuition costs remain after grants and scholarships. The program has been recognized nationally, including by President Obama, for helping families that had considered college unaffordable.

This year’s Tennessee Promise students are 23 percent African-American, compared to 17 percent among freshmen statewide, said Mike Krause, executive director of Tennessee Promise.

Almost half of the 58,000 students who applied for Tennessee Promise this year qualified for full federal Pell Grants, which are geared toward lower-income families.

More than 44,000 sign up for Tennessee Promise year 2

“That is an encouraging indicator that we know we’re reaching a group of students that we were probably not reaching before,” Krause said.

Haslam said Tennessee Promise can also address the broader issue of income inequality by preparing more people for higher-wage jobs.

“We realize the market, more than ever, is rewarding folks who have technical training and degrees and punishing those who don’t,” Haslam said. “Our rural areas and our urban areas had disproportionately low post-secondary attendance and we knew we needed to shock the system.”

Wednesday's summit in Washington was sponsored in part by the National Urban League, a well-known civil rights organization that focuses on economic opportunities.

“We’ll pay a dear price in the future if we do not understand that educating children of color is a central component of 21st century education policy,” said Marc Morial, the group's president.

Contact Mary Troyan at mtroyan@usatoday or @orndorfftroyan on Twitter.