SENSE staff identify students in need of extra support by reaching out to all students in remedial classes, as well as students on academic probation. While every community college offers some advising support, the SENSE program is an unusual effort in Alabama to automatically offer coaching to a certain group of students, and to guide them through whatever life and academic challenges they might face until they complete their program.

SENSE, now in its third year, aims to solve a problem that affects community colleges across the country, as well as in Alabama: poor completion rates.

Nationally, about 36 percent of community college students who enrolled in 2018 graduated within three years. In Alabama, the rate is about 30 percent.

“We lose a lot of students because they don’t think they have solutions to their problems,” said SENSE project coordinator Alisha Miles.

Now, for the first time in years, college enrollment is on the rise in Alabama, and graduation rates are at an all-time high. But the state’s community colleges are still struggling to retain students and to get them certified for the workforce.

Statewide, the system serves 155,000 people, but many are not working on a specific degree or credential. Of about 17,600 first-time, degree-seeking community college freshmen who enrolled in 2019, just 10,000 were still enrolled in 2021, according to state data. Four percent of degree-seeking freshmen transferred to another Alabama college within two years. Another 39 percent did not transfer or re-enroll.

Advocates say another group of students may be slipping through the cracks: People who face barriers that cause them to prolong their degree, or drop out of a degree program entirely.

“They’re doing great with their coursework, they’ve been on track and then one thing in life happens and everything falls apart,” said Chandra Scott of the nonprofit Alabama Possible. “But instead of us understanding that, the first thing we say to them is that they failed.”

Read the full article about community college students by Rebecca Griesbach at The Hechinger Report.