Native Students Stepping Forward:
Dollar General Adult Education Program

About The Program

The American Indian College Fund’s Native Students Stepping Forward: Dollar General Adult Education Program is designed, in partnership with tribal colleges and universities (TCUs), to fulfill our vision of supporting adult students along the literacy pathway to adult basic education (ABE), high school equivalency (HSE), college, meaningful employment, and healthy lives. While still emphasizing HSE enrollment, persistence, and completion, this grant program strengthens the whole adult education pathway, incorporating a broader concept of literacy that includes reading and writing, but extends to areas such as math, cultural, financial, digital, and family literacies.

The Dollar General Literacy Foundation (DGLF) is the program’s primary funder, supporting it at up to $434,000 annually. With DGLF’s investment, the Native Students Stepping Forward program is committed to helping individuals of all ages receive the educational foundation they need to succeed in post-secondary education opportunities or the workforce. Through TCU-implemented programming, this work seeks to strategically expand services and resources for adult education students. In a continuous effort to value the whole student, the program aims to assess and address students’ needs to succeed, encourages culturally relevant programming elements, promotes visibility of HSE students at TCUs, and supports college and career readiness. TCU grantee partners also regularly engage across the cohort in a Community of Practice (CoP) to connect and build relationships, share best practices and challenges, strengthen programming, and examine holistic impact on students and communities.