COLLEGE BOUND / FIPSE PROGRAM
The Challenge
There are many skills that a young person must have in order to be successful in college, skills such as reading comprehension. Oftentimes, students come to college without the proper foundations and, as a result, must take developmental courses in order to successfully progress in the completion of their degree. These courses add to the workload of the students as well as increase the time and money spent on a college education. All of these factors decrease the likelihood that the student will finish their college education.
Why It Matters
When a student has the requisite skills for college well in hand before they enroll in college, there is an advantage for everyone involved: the student is better prepared and has a higher chance of successfully completing college; the high school reflects student success with overall higher test scores; and the college can invest resources towards classes that focus on more advanced courses. The College Bound/ FIPSE program was created to prepare high school teachers to meet the challenges of preparing students to enter college and increase the success of both the student and the schools.
The Solution
Trident Technical College's College Bound/FIPSE program has partnered with several local schools to develop, pilot test, and train teachers in the use of its literacy curriculum, which has a proven record of improving students' reading comprehension. This program is available to all high schools in the US. The costs involved are minimal and the potential outcomes are tremendous.
The goal of this program is to facilitate teachers in creating good readers who are engaged in an internal dialog with the text they are reading, readers who have comprehension strategies that deepen their reading experience and give the student a language to talk about the process. More information is available on this web site as well as by contacting the College Bound/FIPSE office by email or by phone at 843-574-6790.
About FIPSE
FIPSE (Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education) is a unit of the Higher Education Programs within the Office of Postsecondary Education, U.S. Department of Education. FIPSE's mandate is to "improve postsecondary educational opportunities" across a broad range of concerns. Through its various grant competitions, FIPSE seeks to support the implementation of innovative educational reform ideas, to evaluate how well they work, and to share the findings with the larger education community. (more about FIPSE / more about FIPSE grants)
Our Partners
Berkeley County School District
Charleston County School District
Charleston Southern University
The Citadel
College of Charleston

The contents of this Web site were developed under grant #P116B100066 from the U.S. Department of Education. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.
