EDITOR\u2019S NOTE: This story is part of Saving the College Dream, a collaboration between AL.com, The Associated Press, The Christian Science Monitor, The Dallas Morning News, The Hechinger Report, The Post and Courier in Charleston, South Carolina, and The Seattle Times, with support from the Solutions Journalism Network.<\/p>\n
Nationally, two-year community colleges have the worst completion rates in higher education, with only slightly more than 40% earning degrees within six years.<\/p>\n
In Washington state<\/a>, students in the program graduate at a higher rate. Among students who started college from 2015 to 2018, an average of 52% enrolled in I-BEST classes earned a degree or certificate within four years. That compares with 38% of students who did so while enrolled in traditional adult basic education coursework, according to the state Board for Community and Technical Colleges.<\/p>\n The program is so successful that 12 states have begun implementing an I-BEST model at one or more education institutions<\/a>.<\/p>\n For Purvis, who hadn\u2019t been in school for nearly a decade, this class meant getting extra math help when she needed it: during a chemistry class.<\/p>\n Each time Mosser gave a lecture or held a lab, she was joined by Candace Ronhaar, who works as a tutor and extra math instructor.<\/p>\n In one session, Ronhaar drew a heart on the whiteboard. She wrote the word “mole” beside it, and explained it is a unit of measurement equivalent to the amount of atoms in 12 grams of carbon-12. She guided students through practice problems, calculating the mass of chemical compounds.<\/p>\n A Washington education program, known as I-BEST, that provides double the teachers in a college classroom has seen massive success among its 6,000 enrollees.<\/span> <\/p>\n All six students in Chemistry 121 were also taking an entry-level statistics class, and Ronhaar was co-instructor for both courses. Mosser said Ronhaar\u2019s presence was the most valuable part of the I-BEST model.<\/p>\n “I\u2019m an assessment instructor,” Mosser said. “She\u2019s just a helping instructor. In the minds of students, the difference is incalculable. They have a different relationship with her. They\u2019re more willing to go to her, because she doesn\u2019t grade them.”<\/p>\n Purvis said chemistry was the first class that ever “humbled” her. She doesn\u2019t think she would have passed without I-BEST. Students fresh out of high school had an easier time remembering chemistry and math, Purvis said, but she hadn\u2019t studied those subjects for 10 years.<\/p>\n “They couldn\u2019t have picked a better second instructor,” Purvis said of Ronhaar. “I loved it. We went to her office hours all the time.”<\/p>\n After high school, Purvis spent six years as a cook in the Navy, and took classes at a couple other colleges. Last year, she was medically discharged and returned to school at Everett Community College full-time. She plans to go on to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, and hopes to work in labor and delivery at a hospital.<\/p>\n DIVERSITY PROFESSOR VERBALLY ATTACKS STUDENT AFTER BEING TRIGGERED BY TERM ‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: COMPLAINT<\/u><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Helping more students graduate from nursing school has a larger societal benefit. In the first year of the pandemic, from 2020 to 2021, the number of working registered nurses in the United States decreased by more than 100,000 \u2014 the highest drop in four decades. An estimated 200,000 jobs for registered nurses are expected to open each year in the U.S. through 2031, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in 2021.<\/p>\n I-BEST was launched as a state pilot program almost 20 years ago as data suggested students needed vocational training to improve job prospects. The program was to change the remediation model in most community colleges<\/a>, where students who don\u2019t do well on placement tests must take pre-college classes in their weak subject \u2014 essentially a repeat of high school.<\/p>\n I-BEST enrollment in the state has increased by more than 20% in the past five years, bringing in a diverse group of students. Forty-six percent of its students are students of color, 55% are women and 39% have dependents.<\/p>\n I-BEST opens the door to federal financial aid by making it available to students who didn\u2019t graduate from high school. Under financial aid rules, students must either have a high school diploma or prove their “ability to benefit” from aid by being enrolled in a qualifying program, such as I-BEST, where they learn basic skills as part of their career pathway.<\/p>\n Along with nursing, other high-demand I-BEST job pathways include aeronautics, manufacturing and information technologies.<\/p>\n![\"Washington](\"https:\/\/a57.foxnews.com\/static.foxnews.com\/foxnews.com\/content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/640\/320\/ALL_CUSTOM_FS_LOCAL_NEWS_WA_GENERAL.png?ve=1&tl=1\")
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