Drive To 55″ Plan Working In Tennessee

Gov. Bill Haslam

Gov. Bill Haslam

Gov. Haslam’s initiatives to boost postsecondary education degrees in Tennessee are showing success. Recent enrollment figures show high interest in three programs the governor launched as part of his “, which aims to increase the percentage of Tennesseans with a degree beyond high school from the current 32 percent to 55 percent by 2025. About 58,000 high school graduates have applied for the program that offers free tuition at any of the state’s community colleges or colleges of applied technology. The other two programs are geared toward adults. A push to provide free tuition at the state’s technology colleges has received 8,000 applicants, and a nonprofit online university that offers a competency-based degree program has an enrollment of 2,000, a nearly 200 percent growth rate since it was launched in 2013.