 |
Today is the start of something new and important for our students, our 58 community colleges, North Carolina, and North Carolina’s future.
Today — here at Forsyth Tech, home of the Trailblazers — we are launching Boost, North Carolina’s accelerated college to career program.
Boost is designed to help more students finish college and step into good paying, family-sustaining wages in in-demand, high-value jobs faster, which is good for students, good for our communities, and good to keep North Carolina the #1 state for business in the whole country.
Boost brings together colleges, state leaders, and partners like Arnold Ventures, who has made the largest private grant ever to support our community college system.
It’s not just a generous investment. It shows trust in what we’re doing and belief in the power of community colleges.
Boost is based on a pretty simple idea. When you can give students the right kind of help at the right time — things like one-on-one advising and coaching; intentional, relational, flexible supports; and encouragement to stay on track — then you can help them make it to the finish line, and you can help them do that much faster than ever before.
Colleges here and in other states, including Forsyth Tech, have already shown that when we do this more students graduate. They’re able to mitigate not only the academic challenges, but the life happens challenges. They’re able to finish faster. They’re able to spend less money and graduate without debt and move into careers that not only support themselves and their families, but create greater wealth for future generations of their families.
For Forsyth Tech and the other 14 community colleges involved in this exciting initiative, this is a chance for us to do what we already do well — and that is to love and serve each and every student to success and to create a better community for us all.
This is a more focused and connected way for us to do all of this work together because Boost is tied directly to the state’s workforce needs. We know that there are so many jobs and gaps in our workforce in industries like healthcare, manufacturing, technology, skilled trades, aviation, transportation, and logistics — all jobs waiting to be filled that carry great salaries and great opportunities for our students.
Our students can do these jobs, and Boost is going to provide the structure that is going to help us get our students quickly and better prepared for those careers.
What makes this day stand out is that this is a shared commitment.
We look forward to sharing the real stories of impact, of transformation for our students and their families with you. Stories about the students who get hired, creating a future that is so much more than they ever dreamed of having for their families.
Boost is going to help us all across North Carolina strengthen our hometowns.
Today is a step forward for our community colleges and for North Carolina’s future.
Editor’s note: Arnold Ventures supports the work of EducationNC.
Sign up for Awake58, our newsletter on all things community college.
Recommended reading
