Giving Compass' Take:

• EdSurge profiles Texarkana College, which went from the brink of bankruptcy to tripling its graduation rates. How did it accomplish such a turnaround? This post (the third in a series) details some of the growing pains.

• Maintaining success is also not easy for community colleges such as Texarkana, which has struggled to see equitable gains among male and female students. This provides a good litmus test, though, for other smaller schools looking to do a lot with minimal resources.

• Here's why there's growing support for community colleges amid higher ed skepticism.

The road to success is often winding.

In the case of one community college in east Texas, achieving its goals required more than just a shiny new education technology tool.

For this two-year school, Texarkana College, it also involved a local billionaire benefactor, community members rallying to support the college as it faced bankruptcy, and an overhaul of curriculum and advising from within.

For all of the progress that Texarkana College has seen, however, major issues persist. In 2012, the graduation rate for men and women was 7 and 16 percent, respectively, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics. In 2016, men’s graduation rates spiked to 38 percent, while women’s graduation rates increased much more slowly, to 26 percent that same year.

Students taking time off of school or switching to part-time schedules to take care of young children are two reasons why.

Read the full article about the turnaround of Texarkana College by Sydney Johnson at EdSurge.