Native Students Stepping Forward:
Dollar General Adult Education Program
2014 – Ongoing
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.
High School Equivalency Visibility Project
The American Indian College Fund engaged three TCU high school equivalency (HSE) partners for the HSE Visibility Project, featuring the stories of HSE students and graduates in a social media campaign throughout winter and spring of 2024.
2024 Adult Education Program Convening
Fall 2024 – Rapid City, SD
Previous Adult Education Convenings
Grantees
Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe University
Northwest Indian College
Oglala Lakota College
Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College
Salish Kootenai College
Sinte Gleska University
Sitting Bull College
Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute
Turtle Mountain College
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TOCC recently had its first student complete the CCP. Monique started the GED program in the summer of 2018. Monique had dropped out of high school three years earlier and says the bad learning environment made it difficult to care about her education.
Motivation and Perseverance
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Sinte Gleska University GED Tutor Identifies Keys to Student Success
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