60,780 High School Seniors Apply, 9,000 Adult Mentors Needed
NASHVILLE – Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam today announced a record number of high school seniors from the class of 2017 applied for the Tennessee Promise and called on Tennessee adults to serve as mentors for the program.
November 1 marked the deadline for the state’s groundbreaking program which provides high school graduates two years of community or technical college free of tuition and fees, and 60,780 high school seniors applied. That’s up from 58,286 applicants in 2014 and 59,621 applicants in 2015.
Mentorship is a key aspect of the Tennessee Promise. The state’s goal is to secure 9,000 mentors before the deadline on November 20. Currently, 4,500 mentors have committed, and only two counties, Hawkins and Grundy, have met their goals.
“With this record number of applicants and a number of other indicators, it’s clear that Tennessee Promise is changing the conversation around going to college in Tennessee,” Haslam said. “But we don’t just want students to apply to college; we want them to succeed in college and graduate. Mentors play a huge role in the program’s success. We’re half way to our goal of 9,000 mentors with only a few weeks until the deadline, so I want to encourage Tennesseans to consider mentoring. The time commitment is small, but the impact can be life changing for students across our state and in your community.”
Tennessee Promise mentors are required to be at least 21 years old and attend a one-hour training session and two, one-hour meetings with their students over the course of a year. On average, mentors spend about an hour a month working with three to seven students as they transition from high school to college, reminding them of important deadlines, encouraging them and serving as a trusted resource.
The mentor application is available through November 20 at http://tnpromise.gov/volunteers.shtml.
