by Jon Styf
Tennessee’s college-going rate increased 1.5 percent for the Class of 2022, a year after statewide numbers significantly decrease since 2017.
The state’s rate is now 54.3 percent, including this year’s highest increase since Tennessee Promise began, according to a new report from the Tennessee Higher Education Commission.
In last year’s report, the Tennessee college-going rate – which is a measure which is a measure of the proportion of high school graduates that enroll in postsecondary education the following fall – dropped from 63.8 percent for the Class of 2017 to 52.8 percent for the Class of 2021.
“College going for the class of 2022 is up across all race and gender pairs. However, these increases are not evenly distributed,” the report said. “Black or African American students of both genders, Hispanic/Latino females, and white males saw growth in college-going rates above the statewide growth of 1.5 percentage points.”
Students who took dual enrollment college courses, last year’s study says, while in high school had a higher college-going rate than those who didn’t.
The proportion of students choosing to attend Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology or Locally Governed Institutions increased along with enrollment at out-of-state public institutions.
The commission identified three goals for the Class of 2023, including raising the college-going rate to 60%, increasing adult enrollment in high education and improving the alignment between coursework and workforce training.
The commission is also working on a “Drive to 55″ attempting to have 55 percent of those ages 25 to 65 in the state holding a post-secondary credential by 2025. That number was 47.3 percent in 2021.
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Jon Styf is an award-winning editor and reporter at The Center Square who has worked in Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan in local newsrooms over the past 20 years, working for Shaw Media, Hearst and several other companies.
Photo “College Students” by Stanley Morales.
