For this week’s print edition — the one with the dice on the cover — I wrote about Leadership Memphis’ college attainment initiative.
In the Memphis metro area, only 23.7 percent of the population has a college degree, leaving Memphis ranked 48th out of the top 51 metropolitan areas in college attainment.
Based on research done by Joe Cortright for CEOs for Cities — which said that a one percent increase in college attainment could equal a $1 billion talent dividend for the local economy — Leadership Memphis wants to increase college attainment to almost 25 percent over the next five years.
A college degree doesn’t necessarily guarantee economic prosperity but, along with children born out of wedlock, it is a strong indicator of whether or not a person will fall below the poverty line.
One of the initiative’s early focuses is on those people who started college but, for whatever reason, never finished, and how to remove the obstacles to get them back in school. I put out a call for those people last week and heard some very interesting responses about their experiences.
