By: Dwayne Page
DeKalb County needs 18 mentors for the Tennessee Promise and currently none have applied.
As students begin to apply for a two-year state scholarship through the Tennessee Promise, tnAchieves, the organization that operates the program in 83 counties, is recruiting 9,000 volunteers across the state to serve as mentors.
“While TN Promise funding is important, our mentors represent the heart of our program,” said tnAchieves Executive Director Krissy DeAlejandro. “Providing a complete wraparound support system for our students, both financially and emotionally, is the key to their success. It is also part of the broader culture change that we are working on in Tennessee.”
Mentors will work with a small group of three to seven students as they transition from high school to college. Mentors send reminders of important deadlines, serve as a trusted college resource and, most importantly, encourage students to reach their full potential. All mentors complete a one-hour training in person or online, and attend two, one-hour meetings with their students over the course of the year.
The Tennessee Promise offers every high school senior the opportunity to attend one of the state’s 13 community colleges or 27 colleges of applied technology tuition-free.
The mentoring program, organized by tnAchieves, requires a one hour per month commitment after a mandatory training and background check.
In the first three years of the Tennessee Promise Scholarship, nearly 180,000 students have applied. The state’s college attendance rate has increased 4.6 percent, more than the previous seven years combined.
Enrollment at the state’s community and technical colleges increased more than 20 percent, and enrollment at all of the state’s public higher education institutions increased 10 percent. With the scholarship, approximately 4,000 new students are entering the college pipeline. Those students are also retaining at rates higher than their peers who are not enrolled in Tennessee Promise.
Visit https://tnachieves.org/mentors/ to find more information on the program, or to enroll as a Tennessee Promise mentor.