KITTRELL-MIKELL Under the Direction of Teri Denlea Melton ABSTRACT Complete College Georgia CCG is an initiative that has the University System of Georgia institutions strategizing ways
Postsecondary education is pursued for several reasons One motivator commonly highlighted in media is the strong positive correlation between earning a degree and higher wages, suggesting that a degree can raise income potential Other motivators include the influence of parents, the acquisition of required job knowledge or skills, and a sincere intrinsic desire to learn According to the White House’s website, higher education is framed as a pathway to improved career readiness and long-term economic outcomes, underscoring why many students pursue college or other postsecondary programs.
Back in 2014, experts predicted that even entry-level jobs would increasingly demand more than a high school diploma Consequently, many young adults and non-traditional learners recognize the economic and social value of pursuing postsecondary education This goal can be met through enrollment in a technical institute, a community college, or a university, depending on the occupation or career they are seeking.
Postsecondary enrollment is on the rise, with the 2012 U.S Census Bureau data showing steady growth in college enrollment since 1990 From 1990 to 2009, enrollment in two-year colleges increased by 43%, while enrollment in four-year institutions rose by 50% This educational and economic trend is being embraced by national leaders who advocate higher education to keep the United States productive and globally competitive; for example, President Barack Obama expressed in a joint session of Congress his goal for the United States to have the highest number of college-educated adults in the world (Obama, 2012). -**Support Pollinations.AI:**🌸 **Ad** 🌸 Boost your content with Pollinations.AI’s free text APIs—perfect for SEO-focused educational articles! [Support our mission](https://pollinations.ai/redirect/kofi)
Former President Obama challenged every American to commit to at least one year of higher education or some form of postsecondary training and set a national goal that by 2020 the United States would again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world Data from the U.S Department of Education (Appendix A) show Korea, Japan, and Canada as the top three countries in producing young adults with postsecondary credentials, with the United States ranking 12th among the listed nations As Complete College Georgia (CCG) notes, the United States—once a world leader in the share of young adults with a college degree—now trails 14 other developed nations, including Korea, Ireland, Australia, and Canada.
5) Also, according to Complete College Georgia, Korea has reached 63% rate of students completing college while Canada and Japan are at 56%
Complete College America reported in 2012 that undergraduate enrollment more than doubled from 1970 to 2009 even as the share of students who actually completed college remained unchanged, highlighting that while attending college is beneficial, the more critical step is earning the degree The research aims to empower academic advisers to recognize that the purpose of academic advising has always been to help students complete college and to give advisers a voice in addressing the Governor’s 20% graduation-rate mandate Debates continue about state funding models—whether to base support on enrollment or on performance—balancing rising enrollments with improving graduation rates Ultimately, the focus should be on college completion rather than enrollment numbers, guiding education agencies and leaders toward the more important goal of student success.
According to data from the U.S Department of Education (2012), only 29.9% of students in the 2007 cohort completed certificates or an associate degree within the allotted time at two-year institutions, while 53.9% of students earned a bachelor’s degree within five years at four-year institutions The same dataset shows a 58.3% rate of students completing a four-year degree in six years or longer, underscoring the challenge of reaching the goal of increasing the statewide graduation rate from 42% to 60% To examine how this could be addressed, the study uses retention, progression, and graduation (RPG) and CCG frameworks, employing a questionnaire to collect quantitative data from academic advisors about how they plan to implement the mandate to support Governor Deal’s plan to raise Georgia’s graduation rate Academic advisors are categorized as professional full-time advisors, faculty advisors who teach classes and supervise a group of students, and administrators in leadership roles who oversee advising for a cohort.
Yet another fact that the U.S Department of Education (2013) provided is that in
DOE (2017) data show that the United States ranked 12th in the world for college attainment in 2013 and fell to 14th in 2014, signaling a decline in U.S higher-education attainment Remarkably, only about 20 years earlier the U.S led the world in the share of students earning degrees in higher education In 2009, former President Barack Obama acknowledged concerns about Americans’ pursuit of higher education, highlighting the need to address access and degree completion.
Today, roughly 75 percent of the fastest-growing jobs require education beyond a high school diploma, yet just over half of adults meet that education level We have one of the highest high school dropout rates among industrialized nations, and about half of students who start college do not complete their degrees (p 5)
Financing college and the astronomical cost of attendance remain major hurdles to degree completion, especially as economic downturns tighten funding The recession has made higher education more challenging to finance for most students, fueling concerns about rising tuition and mounting debt In 2011, Duncan urged audiences to look ahead, think creatively, and act with determination to contain college costs and reduce the burden of student debt on the nation’s students In 2013, he challenged sequestration’s impact on education, arguing that cuts in funding, grants, work-study programs, and payments to contractors administering aid would undermine the financial‑aid system He asserted that education ought not to bear the brunt of budget reductions.
America is slowly emerging from the recent recession and building a workforce ready to meet the demands of global economic competition in the 21st century Our competitors abroad are increasing their investments in education, not shrinking them, and we cannot afford to fall behind because of indiscriminate, across-the-board sequestration cuts Protecting education funding and avoiding blanket reductions is key to maintaining the nation’s economic edge.
A 2012 study by the national nonprofit CCA projected that within ten years 60% of new jobs would require some college education, raising questions about which states would be best prepared to equip students for these labor market realities CCA also provided a state-by-state outline showing the share of college-aged residents who earned a degree (Appendix B) and calculated the states with the highest and lowest college-graduate percentages The findings show Massachusetts and North Dakota as the only states in the 50th percentile for graduates aged 25–34, separated by only about 3 percentage points By contrast, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, and West Virginia lagged, producing graduates in the 20th percentile.
According to CCA, Georgia—along with 25 other states—produces college graduates in the 30th to 39th percentile Georgia graduates more students than eight other states, including Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Kentucky, and Mississippi.
Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas, however, Georgia is tied with Idaho, South Carolina, and Wyoming with only 34% Only 13 other states have higher rates
Across 18 states, college graduates are being produced at the 40th percentile, with Minnesota and New York leading at 48%, followed by Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire, and New Jersey at 46%, Maryland at 45%, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Vermont at 44%, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island at 43%, Virginia at 42%, Colorado, Hawaii, and Kansas at 41%, and Wisconsin at 40% CCA challenges each state to act now to meet anticipated job market demands, urging the governing bodies to lay a foundation or develop a strategic plan to increase the college graduation rate within the next three years.
Although the push to graduate more students from several postsecondary institutions remains the focus, Georgia was named one of ten states selected to receive funding from CCA to advance this effort Georgia was awarded one million dollars from the Complete College America initiative to support these objectives.
Georgia has launched a statewide initiative to address the college attainment challenge, with Governor Nathan Deal announcing grants as part of the effort and underscoring its importance The plan, introduced in 2011 and commonly known as Complete College Georgia (CCG), will affect the state’s entire university system—public, private, and technical colleges Initiated in August 2011, CCG requires college presidents and other administrators to identify strategies to add an additional 250,000 college graduates by 2020 (Deal, 2012).
The University System Board of Regents’ goal to increase college completion for
30 institutions also outlines a plan that initiates a new agreement with the Technical
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This chapter provides a focused analysis of the variables that contribute to meeting Complete College Georgia goals at two University System of Georgia institutions, detailing how these factors influence student outcomes It also offers an in-depth examination of Retention, Progression, and Graduation (RPG)—clarifying its meaning, exploring its implications, outlining the actions needed to improve RPG results, describing stakeholder reactions, and detailing the protocols that govern these initiatives RPG is presented as a positive construct aligned with Complete College America and as a strategic mechanism for Georgia to raise graduation rates through Complete College Georgia.
RPG provides clarity and a logical flow of student progress, outlining four equal milestones: 25% from freshman to sophomore, 25% from sophomore to junior, 25% from junior to senior, and the final 25% to college graduation The framework analyzes three initiatives—retention, progression, and graduation—in the order they were developed Academics play a major role in both the retention and progression initiatives, with academic advising highlighted as a key component of retention In the progression initiative, student achievement, curriculum changes, and social and economic status significantly affect progression rates Graduation is the culmination of all efforts, representing the achievement of a degree, with producing college graduates and graduation success as the ultimate goals and subtopics of the final initiative.
Figure 1 The Meaning of RPG
Figure 1 shows that the RPG framework can be broken into distinct parts and topics that directly influence the path to college graduation In this framework, retention and progression each account for 25% of the equation, together representing 50% toward the graduation goal Once a student has achieved this initial half, they will need an additional 50% of institutional support to move through graduation and complete their degree.
Researchers contend that the model and structure of advisement, the advisor’s workload, and other responsibilities—such as serving on committees or teaching orientation classes—are major factors that determine whether academic advisors will participate in surveys Therefore, the timing of questionnaire distribution to advisors across 30 USG institutions becomes a strong predictor of the survey response rate At peak advisement periods, advisors can see more than 20 students, underscoring how workload influences participation.
20 to 30 emails a day, which can be extremely overwhelming when trying to address and
Producing College Graduates Obtaining Graduation Success
Approximately 25% of academic advisors resolve issues that their advisees encounter in college When students are failing classes, most academic advisors are responsible for developing interventions to help them succeed, a process that requires additional time and effort.
Debates over the advisor–advisee ratio continue at local, regional, and national levels Drawing on Carlstrom (2013) as summarized from the NACADA 2011 National Survey of Academic Advising, Robbins (2015) reports a median caseload of 296 advisees per full-time professional academic advisor When viewed by institutional size, medians are 233 for small, 333 for medium, and 600 for large institutions Robbins cautions that these figures are not the whole story, and other factors—such as institutional mission goals, political context, campus climate, and additional responsibilities like teaching first-year seminars, conducting workshops, serving on committees, and contributing to institutional events—must also be considered when assigning advisees to advisors.
The University System of Georgia (USG) posted a 6.7% enrollment increase from fall 2008 to fall 2009 Fall 2011 enrollment set a record, according to the Board of Regents’ November 2011 issue.
Supplement, with an increase of 6,585 students or a 2.1% increase from last fall
Since fall 1998, enrollment in the USG has increased every year From fall 1998 to fall 2011, the overall increase is almost 60%, or 117,925 students The largest single percentage increase occurred in fall 2002.
7.1% jump over the previous fall (BOR, 2011, p 2)
Another report produced by the University System of Georgia that includes all degrees awarded by the 30 institutions over a five-year span (Fall 2011 through
2015) shows that the average number of Associate degrees that were awarded was
51,250 and the average number of Bachelor degrees awarded was 181,683
Georgia Governor Nathan Deal is examining how to boost the state's college graduation rate to meet changing job market needs, guided by findings from a CCA report The plan emphasizes accountability for college administrators to maintain transparent curricula that help students navigate degree programs and graduate after two or four years However, leadership in higher education has focused more on improving matriculation and transfer ease between local institutions than on securing the final milestone of graduation In practice, Georgia colleges have faced budget cuts, reducing course offerings due to faculty shortages and insufficient enrollment among upperclassmen.
Another factor contributing to low graduation rates is student-driven disruption—academic or personal—that interrupts progress When a student fails a couple of courses, they can fall off track or out of sequence, and although summer courses can help, some required classes are offered only once a year; missing such a course can delay progression or extend time to degree by a year or more These patterns have become more noticeable in recent years, prompting college and university leaders to focus not only on boosting enrollment but also on increasing the number of students who graduate in a timely manner.
Complete College Georgia (CCG) emerged from the 2009 establishment of the Center for College Access (CCA), which has noted that undergraduate enrollment in the United States has more than doubled while college completion rates have remained stagnant over the past decades To help states diagnose matriculation challenges, CCA produced profiles that analyze where students struggle most in the college pipeline For example, in Georgia, 37.1% of students entering a two-year college needed remediation, but only 57.1% of those students completed the remediation courses or programs, and 18.1% of students entering a four-year institution needed remediation, with only 51.8% of them completing the remediation These findings indicate that too many freshmen require remediation, highlighting an opportunity for high schools to offer more rigorous coursework to strengthen students’ academic preparation before they arrive on campus.
According to the CCA report, remediation needs vary by ethnicity and by institution type At two-year colleges, remediation is required for 46.7% of African American students, 41.0% of Hispanic students, 30.0% of White students, and 39.7% of students classified as Other At four-year institutions, 33.0% of African American students, 20.6% of Hispanic students, 13.7% of White students, and 9.3% of Other students require remediation While some states lacked complete higher-education records, the CCA aimed to give states an opportunity to examine the demographic makeup of students needing remediation and to develop a statistical profile of incoming college students who need additional help.
Presidents of the thirty institutions within the University System of Georgia were required to submit action plans detailing how they would address student retention, matriculation, and graduation, a mandate issued by Governor Deal and reported by CCA Keel, the former president of Georgia Southern University, submitted an action plan to Hank Huckaby, the Chancellor of the University System of Georgia, in the summer of 2012.
Georgia Southern University’s 2012 plan outlined four goals to enhance student success and timely degree completion The first goal aimed to maintain a strong first-year program for freshmen, with strategies designed to retain them and support their progression The second goal focused on continually assessing and refining approaches to monitor and increase retention among sophomores, with the university noting that retention rose from 64% to 69% in 2014 The third goal addressed factors that can hinder students’ ability to matriculate and encouraged full-time enrollment plus a full course load to ensure timely graduation, including efforts to promote summer term enrollment so courses can be made up in summer if a student drops a class or does not carry a full load during the regular term The final goal comprised three parts: ongoing evaluation of programming to support student success, inventorying and monitoring all efforts to promote success, and building a strong campus culture that motivates engagement at multiple levels through intentional in- and out-of-class opportunities.
Georgia Southern University's notable progress with RPG, while maintaining academic quality, is highlighted in the report The same document provides concrete data linking enrollment growth to higher graduation rates.