Casey's Center for Working Families (CWF) partnered with community college programs across the county to help low-income students access, navigate and complete their community college courses. Detailed case studies show how five of these programs are making a difference.
Key Takeaway
Personal connections count
The CWF approach is built upon the student’s personal connections with the staff. Their main objective is to encourage students and their families to attain higher degrees of self-sufficiency. They also emphasize the importance of meeting student’s basic needs: housing, transportation and food.
Findings & Stats
Understanding Students is Key
The goal is to end the “bounce system” of trying and leaving, by creating a culture shift on campus to understand what all students really need to be successful, and then figure out how to offer those services in an efficient manner.
Program Sample
The CWF program at Gullford Technical Community College focuses on the Basic Skills classes, which reach 3,000 students, about 40% of the campus’ total enrollment
Connecting For Success
The program is most often successful in retaining students to the degree that it can foster among students a deeply felt sense of connection to the college. In effect, this is a feeling that ‘someone at the college actually cares about me.’
Statements & Quotations
Life is more complex than ever for our students and the traditional model of serving students’ needs wasn’t going to make them succeed.” Dr. Katharine Winograd, Central New Mexico Community College
We want students to succeed with their life goals. Before it was a template. Now we realize there are multiple pathways.
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