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Originally the Greater Texas Student Loan Corporation, since 2005 this organization has reorganized with a grant-making focus and a mission to support "efforts to ensure all Texas students are prepared for, have access to, persist in, and complete post-secondary education." As of October 2011, the Foundation has put $3million behind "the GTF Scholars: Early College High School Transfer Scholarship and Retention Program" for students who have completed an early college program.

"In fact, one of the benefits of the assessment movement is that rigorous analysis of data about student engagement and learning is showing precisely what works and what doesn't. For example, data from the National Survey of Student Engagement have led to the identification of 10 "high-impact practices" that demonstrably increase student engagement, retention, and graduation rates. They are: first-year seminars and experiences; common intellectual experiences; learning communities; writing-intensive courses; collaborative assignments and projects; undergraduate research; diversity/global learning; service and community-based learning; internships; and capstone courses and projects."

Isn't this what MCHS and ECHS do with their students to ensure college readiness and success? Excerpt: "Some institutions do require students to participate in specific programs-and they've seen positive results. For instance, Brazosport College, in Lake Jackson, Tex., began to require first-time students to take a student-success course in 2007. It teaches time-management skills and proper study habits. As a result, the fall-to-spring retention rate for students who completed the course jumped to 89 percent, compared with the baseline rate of 66 percent. Those students passed remedial courses at a higher rate than before, and as a result were more likely to stay enrolled in college, the report says."

Written by Mark S. Schneider for American Institutes for Research (AIR), October 2011. See this page for the Executive Summary, as well as a link to the full report, available as PDF. From the Summary, "This report focuses on the high costs of the low retention and completion rates that are far too typical of community colleges."