The state’s university system is moving forward with an initiative to increase the number of Montanans who complete higher education programs.
Gov. Steve Bullock announced the initiative in August with a goal to increase the number of adults with some sort of college degree or certificate from 40 percent to 60 percent by 2020. It is adopted from a national program used in many states.
Montana University System administrators told the board of regents Thursday that the initiative blends well into ongoing work.
The university system said that in recent years Montana has already led the nation in growing the number of citizens with a college education.
The program includes performance-based funding, setting standards for full-time students, creating guided pathways toward completion, and building more structured schedules that offer predictability for students. It aims to better help students map out the quickest route to a degree, and require more credits for full-time status.
“There’s a lot of research driving that discussion,” said Clayton Christian, commissioner of higher education. “There are a lot of people who know that we need as a society — a modern technological society — to have more people with some form of post-secondary education.”
The colleges are reconsidering math requirements for some majors and combining remedial classes with the college-level course that now would come separately.
Some members of the faculty have raised concerns about the rapid change and need to maintain quality.