Edsurge On Air

In Tennessee, the education system made headlines a few years back when the state announced the “Tennessee Promise”—an initiative granting thousands of high school students the opportunity to attend two years of free community college. After Governor Bill Haslam announced the scholarship program amongst a flurry of news, students immediately began applying to receive funds to put towards tuition at one of the state’s 13 community colleges, 27 colleges of applied technology, or other eligible institutions offering an associate’s degree program. (And now, adults can get in on the action, too.) But in order for the program to succeed, it wasn’t just about the community and technical colleges agreeing to be a part of the plan. School districts across the state began to see themselves as an integral piece of the equation. And one district in particular, the Putnam County School System in Cookeville, decided to push student ownership over higher education learning even further—with an extensive, dual enrollment co