HCC awarded grant from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and MDC, Inc. are giving nearly $3.3 million to the state of Texas and four community colleges to expand groundbreaking remedial education programs that promise to boost the college completion rates of low-income and minority students. Houston Community College is proud to announce that it has been chosen as one of the recipients of a $743,000 grant to be used over a three-year period.

HCC students attend College and Career Conference as part of HCC’s Achieving the Dream program.

Every year, according to the American Association of Community Colleges, roughly 573,000 degree-seeking students in Texas attend a local community college, and nearly 40 percent of those must take remedial classes to build basic academic skills. National studies have shown that nearly two-thirds of students taking remedial classes never graduate. However, successful programs at several colleges demonstrate that these numbers can be improved.

The grants announced today will support innovative remedial programs developed in Texas through Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count, a multi-year national initiative that is aiming to dramatically boost community college graduation rates among low-income and minority students. The remedial education model pioneered by HCC represents some of the most promising work in the country for boosting college completion rates among struggling students.

The grant will allow HCC to provide greater services and more helpful programs for new students in terms of tutoring, career exploration, peer support and other services. The program is designed to ensure students not only get off to a successful start in college, but that they also receive the assistance they need to persist and succeed.

“It is HCC’s goal to make higher education available to every resident of the greater Houston area, and especially to support our students through the completion of their goals,” said HCC Chancellor Mary S. Spangler. “This is an exciting opportunity, not only for HCC, but also for the students that will benefit from the programs developed at HCC through the Achieving the Dream Initiative and the generous endowment provided by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Lumina Foundation for Education.”

The grants given in Texas are part of a larger $16.5 million national effort. Eleven other colleges and four states received similar grants of $743,000 over three years from the Gates Foundation to build upon the promising work developed under Achieving the Dream. Lumina Foundation for Education has committed $1.5 million to this initiative for evaluation and communications.

The grants announced today build on the need for America to ensure that every young person in the nation graduates high school ready for college and continues on to obtain a postsecondary degree that prepares them to succeed in the global economy.