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  • Leeward Community College graduates, photo courtesy of Leeward CC

To help more Hawai‘i community college students complete and earn college credentials, the Kresge Foundation has awarded $500,000 to the University of Hawai‘i Community College System's proposed Student Success Center, a statewide collaboration of Hawai‘i's seven community colleges.

University of Hawai‘i Community College System was one of five new Student Success Centers supported by a $2.5 million investment from The Kresge Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The investment will help more low-income students, students of color and first-generation students earn college credentials by expanding a thriving national network of Student Success Centers. Kresge has partnered with Jobs for the Future (JFF) to work directly with the Centers to operationalize these initiatives. These Centers provide the vision, support, and a shared venue for a state’s community colleges as they work in partnership on a collective student success agenda.

"The community colleges are critical components in preparing the next generation to meet the state's workforce needs, and I'm very pleased these national organizations recognize the value of investing in our community colleges in Hawai‘i," says Peter Quigley, associate vice president for academic affairs for the University of Hawai‘i Community Colleges. "This grant comes at a perfect time as we recently deployed a new Student Success Council charged with prioritizing and implementing strategies consistently throughout the community college system that will lead to a dramatic increase in student success metrics."

See UH News for more on this story.

Original Story

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The University of Hawaiʻi Foundation, a nonprofit organization, raises private funds to support the University of Hawaiʻi System. The mission of the University of Hawaiʻi Foundation is to unite donors' passions with the University of Hawaiʻi’s aspirations by raising philanthropic support and managing private investments to benefit UH, the people of Hawaiʻi and our future generations www.uhfoundation.org.