Statements

Mission

We empower Nashville graduates to earn a college degree.

Background

The Context
Under the leadership of Governor Bill Halsam, the State of Tennessee created the Drive to 55 Alliance in order to get 55 percent of Tennesseans equipped with a college degree or certificate by 2025. Over 58 Business Organization and Employers have joined this alliance, along with 12 post-secondary educational institutions. The Tennessee Board of Regents is committed to identifying and closing skill gaps to better the workforce.

One of the biggest skill gaps that continues to exist is low-income first generation college-bound students' ability to navigate the TN Higher Education system. Source: Drive to 55 Alliance. 2018. http://driveto55.org/Out of the vision of Drive to 55 came TN Promise. This state-based program was inspired by KnoxAchieves, a city-based approach to increasing 2-year graduation rates at local community colleges in Knoxville, TN. In 2008, at a cost of $218,763, KnoxAchieves started coaching 286 college students and succeeded with a 70% persistence rate, 14% better than the state average. With the success of a couple of years under their belt and the support of local funders, KnoxAchieves scaled portions of their model to become TN Achieves, serving community college students from across the state with coaching services. With the support of the governor, state legislators, and community and business partners, in 2014, TN Promise became a state last-dollar scholarship that supports students seeking their Associates degree at community colleges throughout the state.

While this program has broadened student access to an affordable 2-year community college education, it has yet to solve the persistence problem in Nashville and districts throughout TN that work with a diverse student population of low-income and first generation college students.

In 2018, the Tennessee College Access and Success Network (TCASN) & the Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF) created the first Bridge to Completion to understand the post-secondary landscape in Nashville and highlight the need for change. The report highlighted the crisis within the city of Nashville around college completion. Among the alarming data in the 2019 report was the following: Only 24% of Metro Nashville Public Schools students who graduated in 2012 completed a 2 or 4 year degree within 6 years.Hispanic and African-American students are persisting at a rate 11-24% below their peers.

In the light of this crisis Persist Nashville was founded.

Impact

Persist Nashville has become the largest college persistence organization in Nashville coaching over 2700 MNPS graduates over the past 3 years.

In 2021 we served over 1572 MNPS graduates (or 1/3 of our graduating class) at all 27 high schools. Our students enrolled in college at a rate nearly 34% better than their MNPS peers.

Our students are also persisting in college at a rate more that 11% better than their peers.

In 2022 we will be serving an additional 1500 new MNPS graduates from high schools all over Nashville.

We have distributed more than $40,000 in small microgrants to students to help them Persist in the past 3 years.

We have trained over 35 student leaders to be a leader on their campus.

Needs

1. We are hoping to raise $20,000 through the Big Payback to refill our Persist Fund which provide microgrants to MNPS graduates.
2. We are attempting to raise $300,000 to support a 2-year retrieval coaching program to bring 750 students from the Class of 2020 & 2021 back into college.
3. Our total existing financial need for 2022 as of April 27 is $232,000 in giving.

CEO Statement

What do we do differently?

City-Based Approach - We serve all students from all public schools in Nashville regardless of post-secondary choice (ie. technical, 2-year, 4-year, in-state, out-of-state).

Cost Conscious - We will serve students at an average of 1:250 through our student data-management and use of technology based coaching whenever possible.

Data-Driven Student Management - Using GradSnapp, a software developed by the highly successful Dell Scholars Program, along with Persist Campus Leads, we generate a risk assessment for each student that will determine the specific services and information they need rather than a one-size-fits-all model.

Persist Campus Leads - At local campuses with high percentage of MNPS students, Persist Nashville will place 1 or more on-campus persistence leads who will serve as a conduit for building community on campus through study groups, events, and interventions.

Non-Profit Persistence Focused Support - Most of the non-profit support provides access through persistence support. All of the campuses providing support do so for only their students and include significant financial scholarships or book/transportation support making the per-pupil spending much higher.

Charter-Traditional Boundary Crossing - Most Nashville non-profit organizations serve either traditional public schools or charters, few cross the boundaries and provide direct services to both.

Uniting Existing Services: We aim to be a uniter and not a competitor to the existing programs in Nashville. There are a lot of best practices and resources we can share. The goal is to make the pie bigger rather than fight over the same slices.

Service Categories
Primary Category:	Education  - Higher Education
Secondary Category:	Education  - Student Services
Tertiary Category:	Education  - Educational Services

Areas Served

We serve all graduates of Nashville's Public schools. We currently work with students from over 27 different Nashville public high schools, but we also serve a handful students from schools around the greater Nashville area.

TN - Davidson